A Life In Drift: Review of Chai Ling's Autobiography

More than 20 years after being one of the most visible leaders in the 1989 Chinese student movement, Chai Ling finally published her autobiography, A Heart for Freedom: the Remarkable Journey of a Young Dissident, her Daring Escape, and her Quest to Free China's Daughters, last fall.

When the book was published, it caused a minor publicity stir because of the author's surprise revelation that she had had four abortions during her younger years, the last two being almost immediately before and after the 1989 movement, respectively. But as that faded away, so seemed the book itself. Several reviews came from the religious community, focusing on Chai Ling's journey to Christianity. Her experience in that movement was mentioned only as a backdrop. Little was said about that movement more than 20 years ago.

Little could be learned from this book in that regard, either. A Heart for Freedom is a chronological account of the author's life so far, but lacks the details and depth necessary for readers to gain a real understanding of her intellectual and emotional development. In particular, as the Commander-in-Chief who dominated the second half of the 1989 movement, her account of that life-altering event was sketchy at the best and sometimes borderline on disingenuous.

Her Tiananmen Experience

In this book, Chai Ling framed her initial participation of the movement as motivated by her love and concern to her then husband, fellow student leader Feng Congde. She then provided little explanation or perspective as how she emerged to become the leader of the hunger strike and latter the commander-in-chief at Tiananmen Square. She did disclose, however, that she had held a personal grunge from the beginning as she felt mistreated by Feng Congde and his male-dominated circle of young leaders.

The book did provide some previously unknown hints, perhaps unintentionally, on her emotional state at the time. One particular puzzling aspect was Chai Ling's inner-despair, most obviously expressed first in her speech to launch the hunger strike and her later disastrous "Last Words" video tape (more on that later). That raw emotion, while powerful and influential, was at odds with the mode of the general student public. In this book we learned that Chai Ling had just experienced a series of personal and family traumas just before the movement broke out. By that time she already had had 3 pre-marital abortions (only the last pregnancy was with Feng Congde). Her mother suffered a severe nervous breakdown at home after being falsely accused of stealing. She was nearly raped (she was not even sure if it was an actual rape since she had blacked out) by an acquaintance on campus. Then she had a couple of bad encounters with the campus police, which led her to believe that her relation with Feng Congde was in trouble. All this was probably too much for a 21-year-old girl, who later framed her call for hunger strike as imperative "at this life-and-death moment of our people's survival" as an effect to see if China, as a country, still had any hope left. Maybe that desperation had a deeper root at a personal level.

Meanwhile, the book glided through many critical moments at Tiananmen rather superficially, without going into any detail on her or others decision making process. Indeed, whether it was the start and end of the hunger strike, the dialogue with government official Yan Mingfu, the failure of withdrawing from the Square near the end of May, and even the final moments of the massacre, our Commander-in-Chief appeared in her own book more of a bystander or follower than a leader.

Chai Ling did devote quite a few pages specifically to her "Last Words" video. She defended herself with a rather, well, defensive tone. She made the excuse that she didn't know her conversant at the time, an American youth by the name of Phillip Cunningham, was working for a western media outlet. She attributed the most damaging passage of "expecting bloodshed" to Li Lu and blamed him for not "owning up" to it. She also claimed that Cunningham disclosed the video to the documentary "Tiananmen" producers without her permission.

Her Accuracy

That leads nicely into the question of accuracy and trustworthy of her contents. Indeed, Chai Ling might not know that Cunningham was working for a press agency, but she knew full well that another female reporter from Hong Kong was also present and answered a few questions from her. According to Cunningham, Chai Ling wrote a note specifically authorizing Cunningham to publicize the video. They then tried to "shop" it to several western media companies in Beijing right away but failed to find any takers.  Maybe Cunningham was not truthful here, but none of these was even mentioned in this book. Nonetheless, the fact remains that the video first became public in Hong Kong days after the massacre and years before that documentary was planned.

Upon the publication of this book, Feng Congde issued a public statement claiming that many details in it are not truthful. He said that he had sent Chai Ling a list of "up to 100" mistakes and more than 300 notes after reading her earlier drafts, but was largely ignored by the author. Of course Feng Congde is not an unbiased critic either. As the author's ex-husband, he was described as handsome and brilliant as well as temperamental and abusive in the book.

Indeed, there are many occasions in the book where the author's descriptions differ from known facts or consensus from recollections of others. The book only contains scant endnotes, almost all of which are not helpful as references of her story.

Her Life in Drift

A Heart for Freedom narrates Chai Ling's life from her childhood to her recent rebirth as a Christian and a triumphant return to public life through charity work against China's population policy. It is indeed an interesting story. She had attended top universities in both China and US, led a popular uprising that fixated the attention of the whole world, met with numerous world leaders and dignitaries, nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, became a successful entrepreneur, and transformed herself from an atheist to a Buddhist and then to a Christian.

Given the author's background, most readers would rightfully expect to read about a determined leadership personality. Despite the obvious effort to portrait a strong-willed and independent woman, however, the book reveals a fragile soul that was constantly influenced by others at every stage of her life. It's a life in drift.

In her own words, Chai Ling confirmed that, although being the Commander-in-Chief, she was not the actual leader of the movement but a figurehead largely controlled by Li Lu, who made most of the important decisions from behind the scenes. Her initial participation was due to her feelings for her then-husband. Her decision of launching hunger strike was influenced by a few graduate student friends. Her veto of the plan to withdraw from Square that she had originally agreed on, her most critical decision throughout the whole movement, was entirely Li Lu's idea. And so on. At least from this book, we do not see the author as being and acting as her own person in that critical junction of history. Yet she occupied, and stubbornly refused to relinquish, the most important leadership position.

She also confirmed that she cried almost every time she faced a tough situation or choice.

The 1989 movement aside, the main theme of A Heart for Freedom seems to be the journey to Christianity: the spiritual awakening of a girl who was born and raised atheist. The "freedom" in the book title has dual meanings: a free life from the Communist oppression in China and a free soul under the protection of her newfound God. With her conversion, Chai Ling indicates that she has finally ended her decades of drifting and reached her destination. She had claimed that it was God who was writing this book through her hand. But it is difficult to find her conversion convincing or inspiring. Instead, it appeared more of an act of circumstances and convenience. Years earlier, when Chai Ling and Feng Congde were on the run after the massacre, they were protected by a group of devoted Buddhists for an extended period of time in southern China. In isolation, both of them were moved enough to convert themselves to Buddhism.  Later in her life, Chai Ling found herself surrounded by devoted Christians including his new husband, friends, and fellow former student leaders who had become ministers. She quickly found her new Lord and became a Christian. (Unlike Chai Ling, Feng Congde has held on to his strong Buddhist faith to this day.)

Her Self Perspective

In telling her story, Chai Ling often displayed her own way of selective truth telling. She spent quite a few pages describing her difficulties of getting a high-profile consulting job after her graduation in US because of potential threats from China. (She eventually got one when a firm forced her to work under a fake name -- is that even legal?) She regarded it as an issue threatening her very survival in this country. It never occurred to her that she could try working for a smaller firm without ties to China. While complaining about such obstacles, she conveniently neglected any possibility that her past and fame might have helped her to gain entries to such privileged institutes as Princeton and Harvard, not to mention important connections during her career development and launching her own company.

She repeatedly asserted that she "led" the students' final withdraw from Tiananmen on the night of the massacre. Yet even her own book confirmed that she didn't do anything herself other than walking in front of the student formation with other leaders (while a large group of students were still refusing to leave). The withdraw was initiated and negotiated by older intellectuals on site despite objections from her and other student leaders and finally orchestrated and led by Feng Congde.

In her defense of the "Last Words" video, she continued to claim that criticisms aimed at her are vicious attacks to student leadership and the student movement as a whole. (Feng Congde has been making the same claims through the years defending her.) Yet she found no problem in shifting the same criticisms to her then-deputy Li Lu, blaming the latter for not taking the responsibilities for her. She also gravely underplayed her recent predatory lawsuit against the producers of the documentary Tiananmen.

Her Book

A Heart for Freedom traces Chai Ling's life and adds to the existing and expanding literary collection of characters associated with the 1989 student movement. But to readers who are not familiar with the nuances of that history, this book may be hard to follow as many events and names are casually mentioned without introductions. The author assumes her readers either already well versed in or not care much about them. It may find a ready audience in the religious community who are never tired of such stories of a celebrity conversion. For others, the book may provide a few insights to Chai Ling's back story and emotional state as a leader of that movement. But unfortunately it lacks details and depth to be a valuable historical account.

Books about Tiananmen

People of 1989: Kong Qingdong (孔庆东)

Professor Kong Qingdong (孔庆东) has never been your typical academic. Rather, his outspokenness, which sometimes borderlines on intentional offensiveness or even insanity, makes him a frequent media darling or villain, depending on your point of view. He is also a self-claimed descendant of Confucius.

And every time he causes a public stir, people with varied motives love to dig up his past - that he was once an active participant of the 1989 Chinese student movement.

In 1989, the 24-year-old Kong Qingdong was a graduate student of literature at Peking University. Little was really known about his activism before the movement. 

In late April of 1989, just when the Preparatory Committee at Peking University was busy organizing itself amid confusion and bitter infighting after the initial protest wave, Kong Qingdong emerged as one of the student representatives and elected into the inner circle, eventually becoming the head of the Committee on April 25.

Kong Qingdong worked with Shen Tong and others in the Committee in an effort to arrange an official dialog between top school officials and their rebellious organization, in lieu of an official recognition. Their negotiations showed promise but were interrupted by the infamous April 26 People's Daily editorial and the subsequent April 27 demonstration. Along with Shen Tong, Kong Qingdong tried in vain to keep that demonstration on campus. They henceforth lost the trust of some of their fellow student leaders and were even suspected as moles. Kong Qingdong eventually lost his post in another election on May 2 and appeared to have dropped out the movement from then on.

It is not known what repercussion, if any, Kong Qingdong had suffered in the aftermath of the suppression. He left Peking University and spent three years wandering in remote areas of China. But he was able to make his way back to the same school as a graduate student again to earn his doctoral degree in literature.

Since mid-1990s, he has become a prolific writer, publishing numerous popular books. He also became a professor at Peking University. But it is his public persona, as an outrageous commentator in TV shows and other media, that garnered most attention for him. His political views now align with those "ultra-left wing" who displays nostalgia of the old Maoist China and strong nationalist pride, defending the legitimacy of the Communist rule. It is a far-cry from the days when he was standing among his fellow students in Tiananmen Square.

People of 1989

Review of My Book: From a Next-Generation Perspective

The following review is written by a 16-year-old "bibliophile" growing up in the US, whose mother was an active participant in the 1989 Chinese student movement. It was originally posted on the author's own blog and is reproduced here with permission.

STANDOFF AT TIANANMEN - EDDIE CHENG


Can I have a congratulatory pat on the back? BECAUSE I. HAVE. FINISHED!
Though how much I actually remember is a different story.

Trying to collect my thoughts about it is something of a different story, because had one thing gone differently, I might not even exist. So obviously, it’s something I feel strongly about, something I feel strongly connected to, beyond just the “human spirit” and the human desire for free will and a voice that was so exemplified here.

But being emotional doesn’t help anyone in a review of a nonfiction book. So, I will try not to.

Accuracy/History:

To be honest, I don’t know shit about the Tiananmen Square Protests (and subsequent massacre) beyond the (little) that my mother has told me of her own experience (she was a grad student at Beijing Normal University at the time, and was among the protesters in the Square). So I don’t know how accurate it is — and, given the secrecy of the Chinese government, I doubt we’ll ever get acompletely accurate account of what went down in the Square — especially concerning the number dead (Chinese officials say that only a few hundred died, whereas most estimates rank it in the thousands).

I am inclined to trust this account, though, simply because there is a level of objectivity in the book — though many of the protesters were his peers, the author was studying in America at the time, and he does not seek to glorify the students or the student leaders as many (mainly Westerners, I find — in watching a short Al Jazeera documentary, Wu’er Kaixi, one of the main student leaders from Beijing Normal University, does express certain amounts of regret about how they handled the incident, whereas people like my APUSH teacher and my art teacher tend to romanticise the incident as an exercise in democracy) do. He does not seek to make martyrs of the people dead — though martyrs they were — there were flaws and in-fighting and factions and a highly hierarchical "government," as it were.

And because he is a peer of the student leaders, he does have access many first-hand accounts and primary resources that make his book credible.

I get the sense that the protesters were not truly protesting for democracy but rather against totalitarianism, which is a very interesting concept, as many people regard them as one and the same. The students were very careful not to make themselves opponents of the government, but rather patriots who wanted to reform it. (My mother and her peers were raised in a society that taught reverence to the government and to Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-dong) — she remembers saying “万岁万岁万万岁 (essentially — “long live”)” to portraits of Mao, as you would to an emperor, so it’s very hard to openly and abjectly criticise something which has had a more paternalistic role in your life for so long.)

People:

I didn’t realise how hard it would be to feel any sort of sympathy for the student leaders. I came into this wanting to revere them for their bravery and their idealism and their sacrifices, but it’s so hard to do that, especially in retrospect, when you see that if they had just listened to those who were older and wiser than they, instead of just rushing impetuously into drastic action (the hunger strike, the sit-in), they could have prevented so much bloodshed. When you see how, if they’d only kept their mouths shut at certain critical periods, if they’d only opened them during others, if they’d only done a better job organising and uniting the other students, China may have been a democracy — a true democracy, perhaps even a socialist democracy (I will not deny that that is my favourite form of government) — by now.

Maybe I’m influenced by my mother’s opinions (of course I’m influenced by my mother’s opinions), but I found Chai Ling and Li Lu to be extremely unlikeable (and I don’t mean that to be critiques of their representation, and certainly I would never say such a thing in a review of a novel, where likeability isn’t a factor into how strong the novel is, but these are real people whose actions have had real consequences for thousands of people who lost their lives or their loved ones or their futures that day). Wu’er Kaixi I can tolerate, if only by virtue of the remorse he showed. Liu Gang and Feng Congde and Shen Tong I can stand — I can like, even (I’m following Shen Tong on Twitter) — but that Chai Ling took every suggestion Li Lu had without even critiquing or thinking about them first, that she was the one who lead the students into the hunger strike (there had been rumours that the government was willing to cooperate prior to this), that she let her tears instead of her brain do the reasoning — is extremely obnoxious to me. These are real people she was toying with, not tin soldiers.

Writing:

If I were honest with myself, which I should be — this whole Tumblr is supposed to be dedicated to my growth as a person, as pretentious as that inevitably sounds — the writing kind of…sucked.

It wasn’t horrid, but it was so boring. He was trying to cover too much ground. The book had neither flow nor form, and the only reason I read it is because this movement means so much to me. Had it meant only a smidgen less, I would have surely put it down. (I would recommend that everyone read it, because I think it is a relatively unbiased portrayal of one of the most important events of the 20th century and has severe implications in the 21st, but it takes a certain amount of gumption, I would say, to a person with my reading tastes.)

There was endless history about the movement — the stressing of the April 15th (was it 15th?) and May 4th movements, Tiananmen’s connection with the French Revolution, the backgrounds of each of the student leaders, the background of the American-founded Beijing University — and not enough about the movement itself (it seemed to be more of a rundown of events, and did not discuss the impact or the implications of the movement — globally and domestically — enough for my taste).

For a book about the “Standoff at Tiananmen,” rather than a detailing of each of the student leaders’ lives, I read far too much about where they came from and who their families were.

When he does get to the movement — and the massacre itself, though, it’s probably best to have a box of tissues nearby. I was literally sobbing into my pillow — not because the language he used was particularly evocative (I can’t exactly fault him for that — his English is better than my mother’s, and like her, he was an immigrant), but because what happened was simply so awful.

Overall, I would hesitate to say that this was a bad book, though certainly there were aspects of it that could have been so, so much better. The language was stilted, much of the background unnecessary (for example, we do not have to know the geography of the Beijing University, merely that it has a tradition of heading political movements), but nevertheless, it is an important chronicle of an important event.

Sorry about this rambling, half-incoherent wall of text, though. And also the lack of a conclusion. Can I blame it on my tiredness? Or is that not sufficient?


Reviews of My Book

People of 1989: Chen Xi (陈西)

When the 1989 Chinese student movement broke out in Beijing, then 34-year-old Chen Xi was a political staff in a college in the remote Southwestern Guizhou province. But unlike most of his peers in that profession, he was open-minded and already active in the local scenes, organizing a series forums and making many friends. Early that May, when students in Guizhou started to act in support of their compatriots in the capital, Chen Xi coordinated with authorizes in schools and law enforcement agencies to ensure an orderly student demonstration, escorted by the local police forces. He maintained his contacts with student leaders throughout the movement.

Yet his most daring move was on June 5, after tanks had already rolled in Beijing. That night, he and a few others gathered to form a "Guizhou Patriotic Democracy Association," calling for a general strike to protest the massacre in the capital. They were all arrested within days. A year later, Chen Xi was sentenced to 3 years of prison for "counter-revolutionary propaganda and agitation."

After he served his sentence, Chen Xi soon took part in the activities of organizing opposition parties while insisting on demanding a re-evaluation of the 1989 movement. In March, 1996, he was arrested again and sentenced to 10 years for "organizing and leading counter-revolutionary organizations." He only walked out the prison in 2005.

Yet Chen Xi never stopped what he does. In the recent years, he organized a series of symposiums in Guizhou on human rights and published hundreds of articles on Internet forums to commemorate the 1989 movement as well as calling for democracy. It is some of these articles that landed him in jail one more time.

On December 26, 2011, Chen Xi was sentenced to another 10 years for "inciting subversion."


People of 1989

People of 1989: Chen Wei (陈卫)

When the 1989 Chinese student movement broke out, Chen Wei was just a freshman in the Beijing Institute of Technology. From the very beginning, he actively participated in the campus activities in memory of Hu Yaobang. He helped leading about 4,000 of students from his school to attend the funeral at Tiananmen Square. Soon after, he played a key role in organizing an independent student organization at his school.

At the end of April, he took a trip to his hometown in Sichuan to spread the messages from Beijing movement. When he got back to the capital, he joined the effort of the Dialogue Delegation as a representative from BIT but soon joined in the hunger strike. During that time, he fainted several times and had to be taken to hospitals.

At the night of the massacre, he was on the streets trying to block the advancing troops. He later vividly described how he saw a girl being gunned down, execution style.

Chen Wei returned to his hometown soon after the massacre. He attempted to form an underground organization but was soon captured. He was later released without charge after almost a whole year of detention. That's when he started his career and life intertwined with prison terms. In 1992, he was arrested for organizing opposition parties and sentenced to 5 years. After the completion of his term, he still continued his work in local and regional organizing and became a signatory of the Charter of 08.

He was arrested this past February in a round of suppression in Sichuan. On December 23, 2011, Chen Wei was sentenced to 9 years in prison for "inciting of subversion."


People of 1989

Book Review: From the Square to QinCheng

Li Jinjin's personal memoir, From the Square to QinCheng, published in Chinese language by Mirror Books, 2011, consists two separate parts: The first is a brief autobiography of the author and two recollection essays of the author's experience participating in the 1989 Chinese student movement. The second part narrates the author's life, feelings, as well as reckonings during his detention in various jails after his arrest. The "QinCheng" in the title refers to the most notorious prison in China, in which the author had been a resident briefly.

In 1989, on April 18, just days after Hu Yaobang's passing, Li Jinjin stepped up at the stairs outside of the Great Hall of People and led a day-long sit-in which finally forced three People's Representatives to come out and publicly receive students' petition. Then, in the final weeks of the movement, he helped founding the  Workers Autonomous Federation and became one of its core leaders. He had recorded these experiences in two articles "The First Organized Sit-in in the Square" and "Remembering the First Workers' Independent Organization," respectively. These essays had previously been published in newspapers and other books before. They were also sources for my book Standoff at Tiananmen. Now republished in this book together with the author's autobiography, they lead to a deeper appreciation and perspective for the stories.

The book's subtitle, The Study of Law of a Law Ph.D. Student in Prison, indicates that the book's main content is centered on the author's experience in prison after the movement. Before his college years, Li Jinjin had served first in the army for 6 years and then as a policeman. In 1989, he had already earned his Masters degree in law and was pursuing his Ph.D. degree. With such a background and statue but being put in jail and forced to observe everything from the perspective of a prisoner was quite a unique opportunity. It is therefore remarkable that Li Jinjin never complained or involved in self-pity but spent all his time carefully observing and reflecting. He also helped his cellmates analysing their cases and fought with diginity for more humane conditions and treatments of prisoners.

One particular interesting aspect is that, although the author was a Ph.D. student, he was not jailed together with his fellow student or intellectual prisoners. Rather, because of his involvement with the workers union, he was treated as a worker and therefore imprisoned with other "odinary criminals," a distinction the government had been careful of in its handling of punishments. Therefore, his recollection of the prison experience sheds an entirely different light from those of other student leaders. His "study of law" is also more of actual legal merits, not swayed by the differences and confrontations in political opinions at the time.

From the Square to Qincheng is not a massive book and is very easy to read. (Unfortunately it is only available in Chinese.) The book provides several snapshots of the 1989 student movement and the inside operations of chinese prisons at the time. It's most valuable in its calm and matter-of-fact narrative, which greatly enhances its credibility. Perhaps because of the author's intentional carefulness, the content is confined strictly within his own experiences without much mentioning of other student leaders or participants. This somewhat limits its scope as a historical reference for the movement itself.

Books about Tiananmen

People of 1989: Li Jinjin (李进进)

On April 18, 1989, three days after the death of Hu Yaobang, Li Jinjin found himself sitting on the stairs of the Great Hall of People at Tiananmen Square among younger students trying to petition their government. He was excited but not quite ready to act himself.

At the time, Li Jinjin was a graduate student of law at Peking University. Unlike most of his classmates there, he had already acquired quite a bit of experiences outside of campus.

Born in 1955, he grew up in the midst of the Cultural Revolution when the education system was disfunctional at the best. When he was only 15, he joined the People's Liberation Army (with his age altered by a recruiting officer). Six years later, he was discharged and became a policeman at his hometown Wuhan city. That was the time when the national college entrance exam was reinstated and he became one of the hundreds of thousands youngsters fighting for a precious spot in higher education. In 1978, he became an undergraduate student of law near his hometown at the age of 23.

He then became a graduate student in Peking University in 1982 and graduated with a masters degree in 1985. After a couple of years of teaching, he returned to Peking University in 1987 to pursue a Ph.D. in law. During his second stinct there, he became active and campaigned to become the chairman of the school's Graduate Student Association in 1988. But he soon got into trouble by publicly voicing dissents and organizing controversial seminars. In early 1989, he was replaced in a reelection meeting that he himself was not aware of.

Having been cautioned to stay out of trouble, Li Jinjin had decided to focus on his academics in that spring of 1989. But when he observed the faltering sit-in at Great Hall of People, he nonetheless stepped up and took a leadership role. He led the latter stage of the day-long sit-in and achieved success: publicly and peacefully submitting students' Seven Point Petition to three People's Representatives. He left the scene immediately afterwards. But the crowd did not disperse and marched to the site of the government instead. It later led to quasi-violent confrontations with police at Xinhuamen.

That could have become the single odd apperance for him in the movement as he immediately disappeared. In early May, he even left Beijing to get back to his family in Wuhan due to their concerns of his involvement. It was not until May 18, when the hunger strike had greatly escalated the confrontation in the streets and a crackdown was immenient, that he got himself involved again. But this time, he took a different route.

On May 18, 1989, Li Jinjin was back on the streets of Beijing, delivering improptu speeches. That night, he happened upon a couple of workers who were trying to organize workers. He volunteered his service and immediately became the de-facto legal counsel of the budding Workers Autonomous Federation. Along with Han Dongfang and Zhou Yongjun, etc., he helped to launch the organization and drafted many of its documents and public statements.

When several members of the federation were detained on May 31 as a precursor of the coming crackdown, Li Jinjin and Han Dongfang led a group of workers and students in another day-long sit-in at Beijing police headquarters. They eventually won the release of their detained members.

Quite amazingly, Li Jinjin then left Tiananmen Square on June 2 and returned to Peking University for his Ph.D. qualification exam. In the morning of June 3, he successfully passed the exam and was spending the rest of day preparing documents to formally register the federation when news of massacre altered all his planning. He tried to return to the Square that night but didn't get past Muxudi, scene of the bloodiest battle that night.

After the massacre, Li Jinjin left Beijing and returned to his home in Wuhan, where he was arrested on June 10, 1989. He was released without a formal indictment on April 24, 1991. He travelled to US in 1993 and earned his US law degrees. He is now practicing law in the state of New York and active in the oversea Chinese democracy movement.

In June, 2011, Li Jinjin published his memoir, documenting his experience in 1989 and the subsequent prison life in China.

People of 1989