15 May, 2007 in
Asia-Israel connections, China by Fili An
Tags: Asia-Israel connections, China, jon_halliday, jung_chang
Tags: Asia-Israel connections, China, jon_halliday, jung_chang
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Jung Chang and Jon Halliday came to Tel Aviv Universit
y in Israel for the launch of the Hebrew version of "Mao - the unknown story". They both gave fascinating speeches about 20th century’s China and Mao’s regime, but Jung Chang was the center of the event - capturing the crowd with her inspiring personality.
I owe much of my Chinese addiction to Jung Chang. "Wild Swans", which I bought while I was staying in Saigon-Vietnam, was a key factor in triggering my China fascination. Her personal story touched me in ways few have before, and I immediately felt an overwhelming sensation of s
trong empathy towards Jung and the Chinese people. Jung Chang is more than just a book author or a Chinese who grew in Mao’s China, to me - Jung is a hero and a leader, taking a role that confronts everyone written about Mao - from the Chinese government to the western and Chinese Mao scholars. Faced with relentless criticism she goes around the world fighting for her cause - the right of the Chinese people to remember and discuss their past and feelings about the past.
Jung Chang’s opening speech
Here are some of the points made by Jung in her opening speech about the book:
- The book introduces endless new data, including documents and interviews, which all have some story behind them. For example, the interview with Mamboto of Zair on his relationship with Mao.
While staying in Hongkong after two months of interviews, Jon Halliday found out that Mamboto was staying at the same hotel as them, and told Jung that she should try and get an interview. Being extremely tired, she told Jon that she’s too tired and all she wants is to head off to the hair salon. But, surprisingly, there at the salon was Mamboto, trapped for long under the hear fan machine and so she ambushed him there and got the interview. - They met with Emelda Damascus who was flirting with Jon. The interview allowed getting a unique photo with Mao kissing her hand passionately, which was forbidden for publication at the time. Emelda described the book as an Ideal combination of eastern heart (Jung) and western mind (Jon) and claimed that western men just don’t understand eastern women.
- Mao’s wife’s diary, which was well-hidden for year, was covered for the first time. The diary was discovered in the 1990s and was kept secret, partly due to endless details it included about how Mao treated women in general and especially his wife.
- Jung has always believed that the famine of 1958-1961 was the result of Mao’s economic mis-management, but it turned out that Mao knew this because he was exporting the precious food to Russia in achieve nuclear capabilities. When confronted about it Mao responded that for his projects “half of china well may have to die”.
- This is the first book that shows that Mao had higher ambitions of conquering the world, which was his life long single minded pursuit.
- Mao was vindictive, even towards his closest men. Liu xiao qi, Mao’s number two for years, eventually questioned Mao as well as other 7000 party officials, including Jung’s father, who sought to stop Mao’s policies. Mao wanted revenge, which tool the form of the cultural revolution. Mao enjoyed watched Liu’s denunciations. Zhuo en lai was considered by many as the most impressive Chinese statesmen ever (Truman), and was Mao’s slave for decades. Even so, Mao refused medical treatment for his bladder cancer.
- Mao mistreated all his wives. Number 2, who Mao said was the love of his life, could easily have been saved by Mao, but he was already well into his number 3. Mao was indifferent towards his abandoned children. Number 3 eventually suffered a mental breakdown after her child’s death and being hit by a bomb. Number 4, who was blamed for mao’s cultural revolution, said she “was Chairman Mao’s dog". Mao used her throughout the year to do all his the dirty work. She eventually committed suicide in prison.
- Mao is relevant in today’s China. Many Mao symbols have been kept - his portrait is hanging in Tiananmen square, his corpse is kept at the mausoleum, the leaders describe themselves as are mao’s followers.
- Jung will not accept a superpower that embraces a person like that as part of its history. The day Mao’s portrait is taken down and Mao’s legacy will be questioned is the day China will truly become a positive force in the world.
Jon Halliday’s opening speech
Here are some of the points made by Jon in his speech about the book:
- Turning on his party – Mao didn’t believe in Communism. He made a speech to the communist party – saying that Communism had no hope of ever winning in china and that the only way it would happen was if the Russians were to invade from the north.
- If you read Mao’s texts you can say that he never believed in democracy, suggesting that only force will work.
- It was quite shocking to see how strong Stalin’s role was in making China Communist. The Russians decide to go for a Communist China with everything they had, even if it meant getting it by military means. To give an example - there was not even one popular civil uprise throughout the whole civil war, which was to suggest it wasn’t a revolution caused by the people, but rather - it was full pledged military conquest.
- Most of the critic made is just pop shots. No body addressed the new paradigm suggested for Mao and the sources used. Despite the Chinese attempt to manipulate information on the subject, there is endless information available in places no one would look in like the Russian archives.
- Mao is still there, and most Chinese don’t know the truth about him.
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Yuri
| May 15th, 2007 at 8:38 pm #
I’ll definitely check out the book. Wow.
Thanks for the info!
The Chinese quest for the truth : Jung Chang on China and Mao | fiLi’s world
| May 19th, 2007 at 6:46 pm #
[...] you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!Jung Chang and Jon Halliday attended the conference at TAU Israel to discuss Mao and his influence on China, the Chinese people and the entire world. As the Mao book [...]
The Vol Abroad
| May 27th, 2007 at 11:46 am #
Mao Tse Tung thought…
An Israeli sees Chang and Halliday speak on a book tour….
Henry Wood
| November 28th, 2007 at 11:52 am #
Chang and Halliday’s Mao, Unknown Story is good, but it is not good as The Private Life of Chairman Mao by Dr. Zhisui Li
Chang and Halliday’s Mao, Unknown Story provided a brand new version and perspective of Chairman Mao. It is the first time to portray Chairman Mao as a bloody mass-murderer. In their book, Chairman Mao was a large-scale murderer during a Chinese peace era. Nearly 80 million people were dead by his Utopian idealism: that was an unbelievable number. It is four times the number of deaths of the Soviets in the war between the Soviet Union and Germany. He used drastic violence to suppress people who he believed stood in his way for industrializing China. He ignored the death of 30 million people during the starvation period of the Great Famine, which was caused by his foolish “Great Leap Forward” for overtaking the British and catching up to the Americans. After the Great Famine, his lunatic behavior reached new heights. He launched the culture revolution, which was completely insane. He became a maniac. Under his direction, the violence was propelled to its bloodiest high tide. The horror broke historic records. Elementary school students unbelievably beat their teachers to death. The death toll was continuing to pile up until the day he died. From Mao, Unknown Story, the figure of Chairman Mao was drawn as a vicious monster and mass-murderer.
No wonder, horrible bloody killings described in Mao, Unknown Story truly happened in China from 1949, when Chairman Mao took over China, to 1976 when Chairman Mao died. Chairman Mao did everything so lunatic, and insane. From the catastrophe which he brought to China, he deserves to be considered a bloodthirsty monster and a bloody mass murderer. Overall, the book is good and correct.
Even though the book is good and correct, it cannot compare with Dr. Zhisui Li’s The Private Life of Chairman Mao in deeply and lively describing of Chairman Mao. No less than Dr. Andrew Nathan pointed out, all of biographic writers have a limitation in deeply and lively describing their objects. Because they have never served their objects, they have no chance to observe them closely. Also they have done a lot of research, but the inherent defect is that they don’t really know their objects’ personality and psychology. They don’t know their objects’ courtyard operations; their objects’ retainers, and the relationship between their objects, their objects’ retainers and the government officials.
Dr. Zhisui Li’s The Private Life of Chairman Mao did not portray Chairman Mao as a bloodthirsty monster and a bloody mass murderer; instead of that, it focused on details of Chairman Mao’s personality, psychology and his courtyard operation. Owing to Dr. Zhisui Li’s position, it made him as so called: inside man. He could know a lot of Chairman Mao’s important information that an outsider could not know. Even Chairman Mao’s former public health minister told Dr. Li to come see him anytime if Dr. Li wanted to tell him about any of Chairman Mao’s activities. In the same way, Chairman Mao’s former chief commanding officer of guards also was available to Dr. Li with no appointment.
The deepest impression for me about Dr. Li’s book is the Chairman Mao’s courtyard and his retainers. Chairman Mao’s medical doctor, chief commanding officer of guards and secretaries comprised his retainers. They were called “Group One”. Chairman Mao’s retainers formed a powerful and vicious retainer circle. Their power was even above party officials. The party officials were not servants of people. Instead they were servants of Chairman Mao. They cared for Chairman Mao’s retainers a lot of more than they cared for people. The gossip of those retainers could cause party officials a serious trouble. People were powerless and ignored. The party officials entertained Chairman Mao’s retainers with the best Chinese whiskey and the best Chinese cuisine while the Chinese commoners had a little of meat to eat. During the starvation period of the Great Famine, Chairman Mao even stopped eating meat. But his retainers flaunted the banner of celebrating Chairman Mao’s birthday, and required the local party officials to hold a grand dinner party for them. The dinner fulfilled the best Chinese cuisine, seafood, and the best Chinese whiskey, wine, beer. The party was in the name of celebrating Chairman Mao’s birthday, but Chairman Mao didn’t even attend. Dr. Li found it very hard to swallow that tasty food. However his colleague exhorted Dr. Li, saying that unless he wanted to leave “Group One”, he had better wallow in the mire with them. Some party officials even colluded with some of Mao’s retainers making a fraud deal in secret. The fraud deal deceived party treasurers by saying that Chairman Mao ate more than one thousand chickens in three, four days. Actually, the party officials took chickens for their own meals. Chairman Mao even had never known it until he was dead.
The factions in Chairman Mao’s retainers circle were stricken by each other fiercely. Opponents attempted to topple their counter part desperately. A vicious atmosphere permeated daily life. Nobody felt safe. Chairman Mao’s wife was frequently involved in the factions’ conflicts. In this vicious atmosphere, even Chairman Mao himself suspected somebody of crawling on his bedroom roof at midnight. He did not trust any of his retainers. He even suspected that the swimming pool in his palace was poisoned.
Dr. Li’s dream to be a great neural surgeon became a surviving nightmare. Although Dr. Li wanted to avoid touching this vicious politics, he could not stay out from it. For survival he was forced to stay with one faction. Later, the factions’ grappling escalated to a cross line battle between the retainer circle and party officials, and eventually led to a palace coup after Chairman Mao was dead. Chairman Mao’s wife and her three colleagues were arrested. However, Dr. Li survived successfully.
I feel that Dr. Li portrayed the figure of Chairman Mao and his courtyard operation more close to the true Chinese history, what was really happened in China from 1949 to 1976. Compared to Dr. Li’s book, Chang and Halliday’s Mao, Unknown Story seems pale.