【 以下文字转载自 Military 讨论区 】
发信人: cashback (bing), 信区: Military
标 题: 这个傅萍撒起谎来太牛逼了
发信站: BBS 未名空间站 (Wed Jan 30 11:37:30 2013, 美东)
亚马逊上面有个review写得相当好，傅萍已经跟那个人联系想私了了。
348 of 367 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars I don't believe her story, January 22, 2013
By
lin - See all my reviews
This review is from: Bend, Not Break: A Life in Two Worlds (Hardcover)
As a Chinese, I lived through that period of time in China. I have similar
family and educational background as hers and suffered during Culture
Revolution as a child. I think her experiences in China mostly, if not all,
are fabricated, imagined, overly exaggerated or deliberately miss leading.
If one just read the media reports about her book, he/she may think that
media might just pick the sensational parts of the book and exaggerated a
little bit to help her to sell the book. No, it is not the case. She lied
from very beginning to the end in the book, even on the small detailed
events. I am amazed by her audacity of telling so many blatant lies in such
a well publicized book.
Here are some of the social and culture background of that period of time in
China:
1. In traditional Confucius Chinese culture, children were considered as
property of their parents. Parents had absolute rights to their children,
including the rights to abuse or sell their kids. Since Mao's communists
took over the power of China, parents can't sell their kids anymore, but all
other rights were respected, including the rights of adopted parents (if
the adoptions were legal and paper work complete). Culture Revolution didn't
change any of that.
During Culture Revolution, many government officials, college teachers and
professors, and intellectuals were persecuted or locked up. My parents were
among those people just like Ping Fu's parents(if her claims are true).
There were a period of time that both of my parents were locked up. My
parents arranged me to be taken care by relatives, family friend or to live
in a boarding child care center. Many of my relatives' children and other
people in similar situation all had similar experiences as me. I had never
heard of any kids being taken away by authorities, it is just against way of
thinking. No one, including government could take people's children away.
There isn't such agency to do that kind of job and no facility for that kind
of children. That would cost money too and China was very poor at that time
, children were burdens.
Red Guard were "revolutionists", they were busy criticizing and persecuting
people like my parents (or Ping's parents), or fighting each other. They
didn't care about little kids, and didn't interested in taking care of
children. Kids like us were left alone, although often were discriminated in
schools and in society in general. After Culture Revolution ended, Many
people in China wrote about their experiences during that time. All of those
stories regarding kids that I've read of were more or less similar to mine,
I had never heard of or read about any camp like what Ping wrote in her
book, nothing close to what she told. Ping's story as a child just sounds
impossible and did not add up with many things in that time.
2. The culture on sex in China have been completely different from the West.
China was extremely conservative on sex before 80's. Young people were very
ignorant about sex and usually didn't have any sexual experiences before
they met the person they would marry. People don't even talk or joke about
sex. Rape committed by young men was rare at that time, especially in cities
, and could be a very serious crime decades ago. Raping or molestation of
little children by young people was even rarer. Gang rape was unheard of. In
my whole 20+ year living in China, the only gang rape I had heard of were
committed by foreigners in 80's.
Red Guard were "revolutionists", not street thugs or rapists, they might
beat or persecute people, but not rape. Ping's claim that she was GANG raped
by young Red Guards (as reported by many media. But in her book, she was
rape by a bunch of teen boys under broad day light at a university campus)
at age 10 because she saved her little sister against their will is just so
unimaginable, so against China's sexual culture and thinking, especially
against Red Guards' way of thinking and behaving.
3. The schools were re-open in 1968 in most of the places, and were free,
even for kids whose parents being persecuted like me. Najing is one of the
biggest city in China. I just couldn't imagine the reason that Ping could
not go to school. Besides, in 70's, most of high school graduates had to go
to poor and rural countryside, there were very limited job for them in the
cities. Factory jobs were considered very good jobs and extremely hard to
get in 70's. Many people had to bribe or use their connection to land their
kids a factory job. And factory don't accept child as employee or labor
unless they finished their schooling. Schools may organize kids to work in
factories for several weeks to get experiences though. I did that in middle
school.
So Ping's story of working in the factory as a child and not be able to go
to school in one of the biggest and most developed city in China is just not
impossible to be true.
4. China's college didn't admit any high school graduates from 1966 to 1976.
The first college entrance exam after Culture Revolution was held in 1977.
Any person who graduated high school between 1966 and 1976 could take the
exam. The competition for limited college seats was fierce. In early 80's,
when only currently year high school graduates could take the college
entrance exam, only 4% could get into college. So you can imagine how
competitive to get into college in year 77. The study materials and books
were very limited at that time. Unparented and unschooled Ping Fu could get
into college in 1977, she must be a supper human.
5. All college students in China had to take 4 years of English classes. The
supper human Ping Fu could only speak three phrases of English when she
came to the US, one year after graduating from college: thank you, hello,
and help. Give me a break.
6. China's One Child policy officially started in later year of 1980. At
that year, Ping should be a college junior. For a person grew up in city to
think of writing her college senior year graduation thesis about killing of
baby girls in rural countryside because of a newly started government policy
, it is just sounds impossible for me. China's one child policy and related
abortion issue wasn't caught international attention until 90's. So, even if
Ping Fu wrote something about that, I don't think that government cared.
Beside, after Cultural Revolution, Chinese government don't arrest people
for political reason anymore, except few rare cases. In early 80's, there
were several students at my college did something politically more
influential and considered much more unacceptable to the government than
Ping's paper, they got some trouble but not arrested or detained.
In 80's, China was still very poor. Ultrasound was rare and expensive
medical equipment. Ultrasound exam wasn't a routine exam for pregnant women
even in the best hospitals in the biggest city like Shanghai or Beijing.
People also didn't have the knowledge that ultrasound exam can tell the
gender of the fetus. I don't know how Ping Fu could find that there were
prevalent practice of forced abortions of young girl fetuses in poor rural
China between 1980-1981, .
Besides, US and China were still in honey moon in early 80's. China wasn't
demonized and criticized so much by the West like nowadays. Two countries
were kind of allies against then Soviet Union. China didn't started the
practice of deporting dissidents to US until 90's. And each time before the
deporting, the two government had to negotiate extensively. US don't accept
nobody, they only accept those famous dissents. Ping Fu was nobody and
unheard of.
She graduated from college in Spring of 1982, came to the US in 1983(some
media says in 1982). In this short one year or even less, her college
graduation paper reached media, gained domestic and international media
attention(I was in China at that time, never heard of that story), she was
detained by Chinese government and then deported to the US. None of the US
and Chinese government was that efficient. Chinese media wasn't that free to
dig and report that kind of news at early 80's. This is just impossible.
So this whole episode of imprisonment because of a paper and deportation to
the US is just contradict with everything in that period of time.
7，"Child soldier". I don't know what this "Child soldier" she was. In China
, there was no "Child soldier". During Cultural Revolution, military
soldiers and personnels had the highest social status and relatively better
paid. It was hard for even high school graduates to join the army. The only
"Child soldiers" that I knew of were kids with special talents, such as
singing, dancing, playing music instruments, or acting. They were recruited
by entertainment units of the military. They would study, be trained and
taken care of in those military entertainment units. Those were considered
extremely lucky kids and envied by every body.
If anything we can learn from this book, it probably would be the audacity a
person could have to lie. May be that's the only secrete of her success in
the US. It is too bad that innocent American people have to learn about
China, Cultural Revolution and Chinese people through this kind of lies.
---------------
1/29
Afternotes:
1. I wrote my initial review on 1/22 after I heard news on NPR. The review
were based on wikipedia page about her, NPR and several other media reports
about the book, and first several customer reviews on amazon. I read the
book last week after I wrote the reviews.
2. My local library has the book. A Barnes and Noble' retail store near my
place puts the book in prominent place (I wouldn't spend a dime on this kind
of pure lies). Looks like this book is on it way to the best seller lists.
I called Barnes and Noble today and asked them to take the book off the
shelves in their retail stores. They shouldn't charge unaware customers $27.
95 for pure lies. I urge others who agree with me on this book to do the
same.
3. Ping Fu herself commented on my review and wanted me to have a direct
dialog with her through emails. She thinks that she can address most of the
questions that I asked. My suggestion to Ping Fu is that she should address
the questions to public either in Amazon's From the Author section or in
some other ways. There is no meaning to communicate to me in private.
4. The book is hard to read for me, because it is full of sickening lies
page after page from very beginning to the end. Here are three of her big
lies in the book (there are a lots more) not published elsewhere:
At the beginning of the book, she claimed that one day in 1966, Red Guards
came to her Shanghai parents home commanding her brothers to go with them.
Her brothers were being "sent up to the mountain or down to the countryside"
(This is her original words). Any one who experienced that period if time
in China would remember that sending young people to the countryside started
in 1969, not 1966, after Mao's instruction in December 1968 that encourage
young people to go to countryside to be reeducated by peasants. Red Guards
taking people from their home to send them to countrysides also were not the
way that young people being sent to the countrysides.
She claimed that in 1982, after One Child Policy were announced, officials
at her university would check all female students' menstrual period by
forcing them to turn in their sanitary pad each month. When some girls
turned in their friends' soiled pads, officials would insert their fingers
in to our vagina(yes, she used the word "OUR") to check for blood. I'm
wondering how sick her mind have to be to make up such outrageous lies.
Besides, she forgot that there was no sanitary pad to be bought on market in
1982. Women in cities used long toilet paper for their period.
She said that in the fall of 82, while she was walking on campus and
preparing for her graduation from university (she forgot that she should be
graduated in Spring of 82 if she took 77's college entrance exam, or she
should be graduate in summer of 82 if she took 78's exam), some one sneaked
up to her, put a black canvas bag over her head, took her to an unknown
place and arrested her. Why would our government have to arrest anybody
secretly in this way? huh?
5. Many people who commented on my review posted a link to a photo of Ping
Fu in her youth on the website of fastcompany which has an article promoting
her book and her company.
In that picture, Ping Fu and a bunch of kids were wearing Red Guard armbands
under the Red Guard flag (which means they all were Red Guards). But Ping
Fu claimed they were "children forced to live in government dormitories
during China's Cultural Revolution".
6. Amazon customer Z. Li commented on my review and gave a link to Ping Fu's
NPR interview in 2010. In that interview, almost every words that came
through Ping Fu's mouth about China were outrageous lies.
the link is: thestory.org archive the_story_988_Ping_Fu.mp3 view.
(amazon won't allow the link, so readers have to replace the space with "/".
)
