from Minnesota Public Radio This is a program from the Minnesota meeting Forum series. Minnesota meeting is a nonprofit corporation which hosts a wide range of public speakers. It's managed by the Hubert Humphrey Institute of public affairs at the University of Minnesota during this program. You'll hear the author Betty by Lorde Betty by Lorde was born in Shanghai. China should move to the United States and is now a US citizen living in New York City. She's the author of a number of Works among them spring Moon a novel of China and a children's book in the year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson still take a few questions from the audience following her formal remarks here now is Betty by Lorde with her personal Reflections on China. I was filled with delight and red Delight because of the honor of addressing such a grand audience dread because of the terror of addressing such a grand audience. Unbeknownst to you inside this author still dwells and immigrant child who to this day cause a he or a she if not in it. Who for years had placed tiny Palm over scrawny chest to gaze at the stars and stripes and swear with a Vengeance. I pledge lesson to the Frog of the United States of America. Add to the Wii puppet for witches hands. one Asian in the vestibule With little tea and just rice for all. In the end the light triumphed over dread. For Timmy, Minnesota is not only a state renowned for its gifts Galore to the nation. Minnesota is a place dear to my heart. Mary Pillsbury Lord, my mother-in-law my heroin was born and nurtured here. She is gone for her memory her contributions to Civic life and her work as ambassador to the United Nations will never fade away. I feel her presence her Viking spirit in the audience now. I can almost hear her cheering me on go Farina go for Rhoda. Where the girls from, Minnesota? Once I had accepted your kind invitation I fretted about how best to tackle the vast subject of China and so short a time to so diverse and audience. I'm a rider. I closet myself work alone staring at blank pages and grappling with a world that exists only in my imagination. Finally I decided to do what I do best tell stories. Only today my stories are true. To try and fathom a country of a billion is Unthinkable, but perhaps personal Impressions a visit to my family and friends will make the Chinese not quite so inscrutable. Before stories can be told they must have a context and a seam. The context is recent history. The theme is contradictions. Ever since Marco Polo China has ultimately fascinated and repelled the west and Justin last 40 years American images have fluctuated wildly. In the forties the Chinese were our brave and beleaguered allies in the fifties. The Chinese were the yellow hordes stampeding across the yalu or the blue ass toiling at backyard furnaces and communist. In the six days. The Chinese were the fanatic redguards hell-bent on a crusade to overturn Heaven and Earth in the early 70s when the door to the West Was opened Americans easily replaced Decades of hostility with instant romance China lost with Paradise found the red herrings of Senator McCarthy with the Rose Colored Glasses of Shirley MacLaine. Buy Instant Replay America pictures of a classless society where the ills of the old had been vanquished where well fed. Well clad workers seem to move as effortlessly through life as they did their morning exercises of Tai Chi, Buy Instant books America read the glowing accounts of those who have been lucky enough to Wrangle two week. Guided tours. These painted a portrait of the new ballast man. He littered not he lasted not he needed only a pinprick to undergo major surgery arm with the same Little Red Book the sayings of the chairman. He miraculously mastered astrophysics planted bumper crops or dumped basketballs. Toward the end of the 70s Chinese sources exposed these replays and reports as lies blaming a decade of calamities on The Wretched gang of four. But once Madame Mao and her ilk were jailed Western sauce sources touted that the Chinese were now freed to be just like you and me overnight. They became the so-called communist yearning for private Enterprise and foreign investments consumers of Fashions and fast foods dancers of disco then before too long China tore down democracy wall. cancelled foreign contracts and launched a campaign against cultural pollution from the West there was much clamor of a bilateral issues with the United States these oddly enough all seem to start with the letter t Taiwan trade technology textiles trains and tennis just last December the people's daily in a front-page editorial seem to be giving Marxism the heave-ho then this March them shopping called upon the media to impress upon the populace that communism remains China's ultimate goal. Confronted by these conflicting stories. No wonder Americans raised on a diet of absolutes and inalienable rights are confused and easy with complexity. They would like a definitive answer. Is it good or evil just or in just means or ends reality or Illusion? Alas contradictions exist everywhere, especially in a country. So old that its history can be interpreted in Cycles, especially in a people so accustomed to yielding not only to nature but to the powers-that-be that often what is said misleads what is unsaid meaningful? In truth Chinese are people of unending contradictions. It just born with a black and blue mark on his bottom where Legends explain the city magistrate of the Netherworld kicked to send reluctant Souls into this life. Yes, once on Earth Chinese are Fierce survivors and a most secular lot often seeing Life as a paradox. Yin as necessary as yang They better wait Confucius the ultimate social engineer alongside of loud. Sue the ultimate drop out. They're too sophisticated for religion and too superstitious to deny the gods. And so they have been known to offer incense indiscriminately to all religions at one and the same ceremony. Thanking it unwise not to hedge their bets. And they cling to Traditions even as they Embrace Revolution. alas there lies the cultural Gap. America a young and dynamic country enjoy the fruits of many a dream and open Horizons China and ancient civilization rich and provide poor in income overflowing with a billion to house and feed is and always has been a country of limits. Limits imposed upon the individual by the traditional philosophy that prizes family above man Harmony above Equity order above change. Limits imposed upon the individual by the tenants of Communism that exalt party above family Revolution above stability tomorrow above today. An understanding China One must never underestimate these limits. But having said that I firmly believe that some limits perhaps the most meaningful ones are receding. But China has truly changed since that secret trip Henry Kissinger and my husband took from Pakistan to Peking 14 years ago. And the changes are rooted in the greatest contradiction of them all that they Humane and hardening progress of recent years was both retarded and quickened by the Holocaust of the cultural revolution. That tragedy purged those who question great leaps forward and violence class struggle, but that tragedy also discredited leftist can't decisively and Supply the Rope by which the extremist hung themselves. The agony of the cultural revolution to its wanton excesses gave birth to the hope of a brighter future for the Chinese the current path of pragmatism, May Zig and zag, it may lead in unexpected directions. But I think that time has passed when one Lie by virtue of his coat and historic Legacy can ever again monopolize the Mandate of Heaven impose his personal vision of utopia and unleash the forces of chaos and cruelty to call a nation. Having filled in the context and proposed the theme let me illustrate them with my personal impressions. In 1973 when I returned to China for the first time. Some of my nearest kin they're not see me. They literally skipped out of town or pretended. We were not related others avoided being alone with me without a witness. How could they convince the authorities that our talks were innocent? This I grasped only after nature had called many times and both my aunt's unfailingly locked arms and scurried out of the room. While visiting an uncle the atmosphere was peculiar to say the least. He hardly opened his mouth his wife busied herself throughout oddly disoriented. Sometimes she turns right to get to the kitchen other times left for my cousin asked me to sing An American song my uncle paled. Practically Neil Dover. Could it be that my reputation as a singer had preceded me? Nothing made sense. But there was an explanation recently. I learned that in anticipation of that visit hundreds of tenants who lived with inside have been ordered to clean to paint to parade and their finest along my route and moments before my arrival. My relatives was snatched up and deposit it in the deluxe Apartments of a high Cadre. No wonder my uncle hemmed and hawed hearing that the place was bugged now wonder my aunt could locate a thing. Everywhere, I went officials babysat crowds gaped it whenever whenever I tried to strike up a conversation with a stranger. No one replied. At the hotel, my gods would not eat with me. I was served Sumptuous meals alone and empty banquet halls. Lord knows I felt as if I had sprouted feathers and scales. At a family dinner. I presume to school to cousin who had brought her child from the Borderlands to meet me. I accused her of spoiling the three-year-old who refused the delicious Pork and Beef dishes her grandmother had cooked. again There Was an explanation the child had been raised on a daily diet of salted cabbage and rice and naturally suspected what she had seldom tasted before. Obama relative the one that impressed me most was gumar. When I first saw her I could not believe my eyes. She was a miniature version of my father. The Crooked Smile the athletes tried. She even held her cigarette that way he did Chicago gangster style. I hasten to tell her of all that had happened to me on my other stops. It has been like a dream I said who could have guessed that I would be able to return to celebrate my 35th birthday in the city of my birth with my own clansmen. Some legume I laughed. My niece guess guess where I spent my 50th birthday. I could not she cooks me again and again to guess enjoying some wonderful secret like a child. Finally, she told me and take off position. I did not understand she explained. I was alone on a huge stage surrounded by thousands of students who pitched rocks and called me a snake and a monster. My back was Ben from the waist my arms raised above my shoulders like a plane and take off position. There I remained for 8 hours on my 50th birthday. a word for matter of fact the smile never left her lips tears fell from my eyes immediately ordered me not to cry don't you dare? I never cried. She said not once not once in all the times that I was struggled against. Why after a while I learn to sleep in that position. I was dubbed by those who despise me Karen Steele woman. This was only the beginning of her story. She was imprisoned by the red guards in a broom closet at school for 6 months. Her head was shaved and periodically the children with stripper and beat her. Later, she was sent to the countryside to live among the peasants for two years a life of bare subsistence. Her crime, she was born into the wrong family. She loved books. She was a first class teacher and expert. on subsequent trips one time we were strolling in the park when a young man greeted her with a bow. How have you been teacher about how he asked most politely? Kumar returned his grading When he had passed she asked do you know who that one was? Should I know him? He was the head of the red guards who beat me for 6 months. I started after him. She pulled me back. I wanted to throttle him to take revenge. She only smiled that Crooked Smile. It was not his fault. He too suffered. It was the times. We were both casualties of History. My story is not unique the people's daily. The official government newspaper has estimated that a hundred million or persecuted during the cultural revolution. Don't shopping himself was sent from his seat on the politburo to the countryside where he waited on animals. One of his son's remains paralyzed from a fall when he was pushed out a third-story window by Red guards. Spurred by his own bitter experiences Michelle paying his led the country in a new direction away from fanaticism and Dogma toward pragmatism. Undoubtedly, it will not be easy or even continuous. Undoubtedly. They will be setbacks. Needless has the Communist Party will not reform itself out of power a welcome democracy as we know it. But no one no one can deny that for the masses life in the 80s is a vast Improvement. The statistics are there to show this but mbas know how these chemists lead more real to me is what I saw for myself on my latest trip. I was free to go about unchaperoned lived for weeks in different homes of relatives and Friends. These were not the potemkin apartments where charades were enacted had been newly built. They were better furnished then even the showcases. I saw on earlier trips. They had TV, please some have refrigerators gas stoves central heating private toilets and in some places telephones in washing machines. Cloth was no longer rationed food was abundant and in the variety at farmer's markets. Once peasant girls were sent by impoverished parents to big cities to work in order to be fed. Now these daughters are being recalled back to their villages to marry prosperous farmers. once I occupied an entire hotel to myself Nowadays hotel rooms are hard to come by because farmers in busloads reason to town to shop and play foreigners and playing swoop into China to tour to exchange to bid. But even more convincing than the tangibles why the intangibles I found the contrast to earlier trips or startling. the atmosphere no longer stultified Views exchanged among friends were not routinely self-censored. Before I would be remiss in talking so freely of my earlier tips for fear of compromising those quick confided in me. But today who y'all bong secretary-general of the Chinese Communist Party admits that his Nation had wasted 20 years. Even in taxis, I was able to strike up conversations with a driver. No less Frank than those. I've had in the Big Apple. On streets buses Subways. No one stared even though I wore dresses that once automatically Mark me as an evildoer or at least a woman of ill repute. Once party membership was the only ladder to success that was favored were often the least equipped to lead, but had Faithfully towed the smallest lie. Now recruitment is hot and heavy among the intellectuals the experts who have been shunned for their Bourgeois Origins and unorthodox views once cheered and jailed now attends national conferences as an honored delegate. Once being labeled a righteous was akin to being a leper. Now more often than not it is regarded as a mark of foresight and integrity did not the righteous speak up against the confining hug of the Soviet bear against the costly experiments of the left did not the right us not speak up for the policies currently in favor. Once listening to The Voice of America risk imprisonment are encouraged to TuneIn and learn English. Once a degree from overseas brand of the citizen a sinner as blatantly as the a sewn on the bodice of Hester Prynne. In recent years 33,000 Chinese have been sent abroad to study half of them to America. Lest I leave you with the impression that all has changed and all is well. Let me remind you again that China is a country of limits. While it is acknowledged that marks the man died over a hundred years ago marks the prophet lives. While the most meseke has been laid to rest a theoretical framework to legitimate eyes pragmatism has yet to be fully formulated. While Party politics have changed the party structure has not while the leadership is vocal and supporting the four modernizations others for the moment soak in silence. Do not forget 50% of the party members gained entry shouting the slogans of the cultural revolution. 80% never even attended College While dung is famous for saying white cat black cat what matter so long as it catches mice. The bureaucracies are bloated with red cats fattened on privilege in the future. Will they be content to lay solo? While we formed in the countryside have achieved from nominal success those just underway in the cities. Carrie much greater risks for the establishment. While all problems are being solved by new solutions. They inevitably breed an array of new problems such as inflation corruption inequities crime budgets created. An array of new demands such as consumer goods markets infrastructure investment expertise. While the campaign against cultural pollution didn't get very far people who have survived the Blazing fires of Prior campaigns Quake at the sight of a match. Well Western technology is welcome Western ideas. I suspect and Western mores are front traditional as well as Communists sensibilities. Now having said all that I maintain that these recent changes are not illusion. Unlike previous. They cannot be switched on and off something fundamental has happened something that cannot be reversed. in seeking truth from facts the leadership has flung open the doors consequently Chinese have seen the world as it is not. As it looks distorted by Dogma tainted by xenophobia Blinded By the Great Wall, which for so long has isolated China or tens of centuries. China was the Middle Kingdom the center of the earth that most civilized of Nations today the Chinese recognize that not only the barbarians of the west but also their former tributaries in the East has surpassed them in education and prosperity. This is a challenge that all Chinese agree must be met. I do not doubt that a picture is worth Ten Thousand Words recently indelible pictures have been etched on the side case of the Chinese masses that words in the future cannot erase. Let me simply cite two examples from the multitude. The Chinese people have dumped shopping in a cowboy hat at the Houston Astrodome. They have seen who your phone in a coat and tie at the industrial sites of Tokyo. If America is too young to fahren to pluralistic to serve as a yardstick as a model, what about Japan? It is much closer in age distance and culture to China. Once Japan emulated everything Chinese to the point of adopting. It's written language. Today Chinese have seen for themselves how Japan without losing it to the identity has risen out of the ashes of defeat to the riches and Power. And so must China rise out of the ashes of the cultural revolution to new glories. Lest I leave you thinking China is pure enigma. May I remind this audience that in the 60s and the 70s we in America also experienced great turmoil under the heavens. It was a time of Bloodshed and Watergate riots and Retreats loss of face and loss of credibility. One Last Story my Wisely, the gods made me wait 27 years before returning to China. But only at middle age was I looking at life from both sides as mother and daughter is Chinese and American. Is younger and Elder? as one person as a member of a clan as interested in history as in dreams, no longer thinking that life was Without Limits and mortality but a word There I heard the tales of my ancestors and saw the lives of my relatives the life. I might have led. They live swell China from Shanghai to Xian. They are newborn and agent Heroes of the Communist movements and martyrs of the cultural revolution sweepers and vice-chairman downcast and triumphant living and dead. Once I was deeply saddened to have missed grandfather by only three short Years yet Perhaps if our hands had actually touched and our arms encircled upon homecoming such happiness would have driven the gods mad with Envy. Nothing would have distracted them from a terrible Revenge. But the scene never was and the jealous Gods where load by The Silence of our faithful meeting. Grandfather sleeps in the earth new soochow has mountains to shelter him from the wind green farmlands to gaze upon the shade of a bamboo Grove the vast Tranquility of taihu Lake Anna singing Miss just over the horizon. As I stood on that slope. I realized how precious my Chinese Roots they must endure so that one day when the children of my children and their children who don't speak Chinese in Chinese or no China visit the Sloan ancestor. They will feel Chinese as I did that afternoon at his grave. There are about three times. I left chrysanthemums and took away Serenity for my mother. Upon my return to America. I began to write and many many years later after numerous false starts. I completed a novel which I hope is a bridge between the land of my ancestors and the country. I now proudly call home. Thank you. I'll start with a question cuz I'm kind of curious about the country out the party. What is the party structure in China? How many members in China are members of the Communist Party in China? They're up. All 10:40 million Communist party members, but half of them came in through the cultural revolution and they're now in Middle. Wrong as a bureaucracies and the party has now been trying to rectify some of the members don't shopping says that he is going to be getting rid of or retiring in some way 900,000 of them. So he is so there is going to be a lot of changes in the party. But unfortunately still there still an uneducated their peasant background. So they're ill-equipped to do experts work in the modernization. So I think this is going to be gradually changing that is why they're now asking people that they had spurned before to join the party because they are the ones who are educated who been to college have been abroad who knows something about management and this this will solo be a long process before they can really get this turned around. That was really an eloquent and also so descriptive of the feeling in China and I've I was there in 1978 and I'm sure it's changed dramatically since then, but I'd like to have you comment a little bit on your perspective of what will happen with Taiwan. What both from inside and from your perspective from this country. Do you see there being any reconciliation or a future for Taiwanese Chinese relationships? I think this is essentially a problem that that Chinese have to settle I think that what will happen on to Hong Kong will be very instructive. I think also if the PRC is able to continue with it this kind of policy then the economic differences between Taiwan and the PRC will slowly in time become more balanced and but I think I see this all in the future. I do not see anything in the short one that will change the current situation, but then I think anyone is really quite foolish to predict. Anything for China? Yes, the Chinese we have learned are in adopting a program of one or two child families. This is a relatively controversial thing to do I gather in China because like in many other parts of the world by Family you have described as being assertive Rich tradition. It's also a form of Social Security. Yes, what and how are the Chinese going to do with this population policy and how do you think it would work and be successful? I think it's a terrible problem because on the one hand and let me just describe what living conditions are in and in most big cities. You're not the average living space for anyone in the cities is is less than 3 square meters. I think probably the size of a twin bed or something like that. In the mornings people line up to use the facilities because there's usually about five or six families to one kitchen to one bathroom. So the overcrowdedness of China is a factor that strikes you immediately as you get there and stays with you I live there. I don't understand how they can the students can study or how they have any ability to get away from one another and into a task that they're doing because they're always with people So they have to do something about the population problem. There no easing it up a little bit now again, because they've they've made them if you have one child and you agree just to have one child. You're the woman is allowed six month maternity leave, but if you have a second child you then forfeit a lot of social welfare programs there that are given to one-child families. So they having a carrot and stick approach then of course is his problem of in the countryside where because it's now becoming is it terrible paradoxica there now getting richer in the countryside because they can work their own lands be responsible for their plots give part of it to the state and sell the rest on their own because they're making money and because they can do this I can keep it the grain that they can sell them private plots. They want to have more Sons So that they can help them work work the farms and become wealthier on the other hand. This is exactly what the government doesn't want. So it's a very difficult policy. I don't know. It's going to be balanced balanced. It's going to harden and soften hard and soft and I think because the people are so much. deeply rooted in the idea of family and as the The the problem later on of having for instance many many more men than women what happens the Next Generation so one solution to one problem agenders another problem. Yes. There is to know if you noticed ever any interest in joining any other party. I know that many other parties do exist in China II suppose about to our aspects of society. But the how much do people join the record. How active are they in The Mists what I'm curious about what they did. Well, they don't have any power. They there now giving a say many of the members of national people's Congress which is sort of like a consultative. They don't make it a policy but they they give their opinions many of the party members are represent other party members are represented. But again still today pretty much if you're an ambitious person. You would enjoy you would join the Communist party and not the other party the other parties are more like love. I mean that they don't exercise any power except them. An expression of opinion though. Well, I think it's it's it's not like here. I think that what has changed greatly and that we can only discuss China in the context of China. We can never discuss China in the contact the United States in the context of China. They're the things that I have seen. It's so different now than before is the fact that before people didn't even have the freedom of Silence. At least now they have that they're not asked to go to meetings. They're not asked to report on anybody else. You're not asked report on themselves whether they can sit at meetings and give There their true opinions on every single case my every single issue. I can't say although in the homes among friends. I have heard all kinds of discussions. It's no different than here. I was here in the United States, but whether they would feel that's comfortable about saying them in a public forum that something else but at least they don't have to talk against someone against themselves. They can take the fifth. You mentioned that a good deal of the day. Produce that's available comes from farmers markets that the individuals who who have these pots of land. I'd like to have you speak to that little bit do they own that property and are there limits to the income they can receive from it. And how are they taxed on on that convinced about 56% They have to give 56 they have to they have to ask the government says You must give me x amount. Above x amount you can keep and you can sell and do what you want to do with the Landis does blown to the state doesn't belong to them except for plots that are specifically assigned to them. The one thing about being farmer today. They can build the housing for farmers are so much better than the farming for bureaucrats for for even the vice-minister of the fine in the foreign Ministry sometimes because they have they are allowed to build onto they exist existing houses in the countryside. The thing that I was shocked by Is a figure that says 50% of produce is lost between the Harvest and the markets. So that if they solve this problem in terms of Roads or Refrigeration or are our vehicles, they can really make great progress because 50% of it is lost. Now offer Buddy Bell Lord has offered your personal Reflections on China in an appearance at the Minnesota meeting a public forum founded in 1982 and supported by a variety of Minnesota corporations cassette tapes of Minnesota meeting programs are available for $7.50 make your check payable to Minnesota meeting and send it to Minnesota meeting. 400 North Robert Street, Suite 1100 Saint Paul, Minnesota 55101. That's $7.50 for each cassette tape of the Minnesota meeting program make your check payable to Minnesota meeting and send it to Minnesota meeting. 400 North Robert Street, Suite 1100, Saint Paul, Minnesota 55101 This is the American public radio network.