hello
now i have internet in my room (and its actually quite fast ADSL), Ihave uploaded lots and lots of photos to the website:http://www.imagestation.com/member/?name=adamlane
You have to register to enter, but its free and its Sony, so youshoulfnt get millions of junk emails. There are loads of albumsthere (22), I have resroted them a bit too, and the ones that havebeen added of note are:
-Chinese New Year (see some pictures of dragon dancing and redlanterns everywhere!)
-BJTourist-blackbamboo park
-Tianjin
-random socials
-appartment
-holiday (see my lovely family in these pictures too!) includingspectacular Yangshuo
Below I have copied the interesting article that I read about ZhaoZiyang who died earlier this year. I mentioned it a bit in Januaryso won't go on, but I did realise forgot to copy the article. Formore information, even better (longer) articles are here:http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/GA29Ad03.html
Anyway, what is most interesting is that I can access these articleshere, when from reading them, you would think that China would wantthem banned...the answer i am sure is that they are in english soruling out most of china from reading them.
On other matters, Thursday morning was a test to establish mychinese level (very low -short test!), friday night I went to theAustralian Chamber weekly drinks (and suffered pom jokes) withRalph, and tuesday lessons start for real :)
Now I'm off to watch a video of poor schoolkids in the westernprovince of Yunnan, that a friend filmed as part of a schoolproject -she showed the film in shanghai to friends.fmaily etc inorder to raise money to pay for the education of the kids. She isgoing back in October, so if I am still here, I hope to go with (wehave to apply for permission, and be accompanied by a local povertyalleviation officer, but she thinks I will be allowed) -veryexciting!
Enjoy the weekend, from sunny (yet with ice still lying everywhere!)Beijing
Adam
Farewell to a righteous official
Zhao Ziyang is dead and buried, but the memory of Tiananmen Squareremains very much alive
Isabel Hilton
Saturday January 29, 2005 The Guardian
It took 12 days of hard bargaining, but today there will at last bea funeral at Babaoshan, the cemetery for China's senior leaders, forthe disgraced Zhao Ziyang who died on January 17. Family and friendswill be permitted to attend and, after days of confrontation, it isreportedly agreed that the Communist party's negative assessment ofZhao Ziyang's life will not be rammed down the throats of hisgrieving circle until after the funeral. Even in death, Zhao, theman disgraced for trying to save the students in Tiananmen Square in1989, offers a reproach to Beijing's ruling elite.
Before Jack Straw's visit to China, the Foreign Office tried hard topersuade us that the EU's desire to lift the arms embargo on Chinawas a simple, practical matter with no wider resonance. The embargo,their argument went, is ineffective, and EU rules would bettercontrol Beijing's access to lethal weaponry.
That remains to be tested. But the argument neglects the symbolicvalue of the gesture. To lift an arms embargo imposed after themassacre of Chinese citizens by their government in Tiananmen Squareis to announce to China that the episode is over and done with. Thatwould please Beijing's rulers. But as their reaction to ZhaoZiyang's death demonstrates, they themselves believe that Tiananmenis far from over.
It is difficult to pull off the modernisation of a society ascomplex as China's without relaxing authoritarian controls. Socialdevelopment demands enough freedom to permit talent and enterpriseto flourish. Political stability requires a population inclined totrust its government and share its goals.
In the People's Republic it is far from clear that people trusttheir government. There is a muscular patriotism, Maoism's lastideological legacy. But China is in the throes of a profoundtransition and its people have every historical reason to be wary.For the last decade the majority has generally accepted the bargainof political acquiescence in return for rising living standards.Even so, rebellious minorities continually break through. It isclear from the events around Zhao's death that Beijing fears thatdisaffection and the potential for trouble are even more widespreadthan the visible protests that take place daily suggest.
Beijing routinely suppresses news of civic protest, fearful thatstrikes and demonstrations might coalesce into something moreorganised. They feared that Zhao Ziyang's death might galvanise justsuch a movement. Its explosive potential rests in a culturalarchetype - that of the righteous official, whom tradition suggestsis as powerful a focus of loyalty as the figure of the oppressiveemperor.
A righteous official, in Chinese history and mythology, risks hislife to stand up for justice against the tyrant. His symbolic valueat moments of political crisis is immense.
The opening shots of the Cultural Revolution in the early 60scentred on a play that honoured a righteous Ming dynasty official.The play was understood by Mao to be a coded attack on himself fordisgracing Peng Dehuai, whose crime had been to blame Mao, rightly,for causing the death by starvation of about 30 million Chinese.When Zhou Enlai - who was remembered, rightly or wrongly, fordefending several of Mao's victims - died, and the Maoist hardlinerstried to bury him without due honours, the crowds erupted inTiananmen Square. When Hu Yaobang - who had been disgraced in 1987for sympathising with democratic reform - died in 1989, it was thesignal for the occupation of the square by pro-democracy protesters.That episode ended in the massacre Zhao is credited with trying toprevent. Hence the explosive potential of his memory.
There are ironies in this succession of names: Zhao helped to toppleHu Yaobang, two years before he himself was toppled. But the idea ofthe righteous official does not represent a coherent movement oreven a rigorous view of history. Its power lies in the symbolism ofa moment when a man stands up for what he believes to be right,regardless of the consequences.
Despite China's facade of modernity, the battle over memory andhistory runs as deep as ever. Today's leaders know that they are thebeneficiaries of economic reforms that Zhao Ziyang pioneered in the70s, but to honour him officially for helping to lay the foundationsof today's market-driven growth would demand a reassessment of thepolitics of his disgrace. In 1989, for his opposition to the use offorce, Zhao was accused of trying to split the party, a crimegreater in the bureaucrats' eyes than the murder of an unknownnumber of citizens.
To rehabilitate him posthumously is unthinkable as long as JiangZemin, chief beneficiary of Zhao's disgrace, is still alive, and themen he chose are still in charge. Even to discuss it risks openingup a festering wound - hence the close surveillance extended sinceZhao's death to his family, friends and anyone suspected of sympathyfor him. Yet not to face it means that the wound continues tofester. Whatever the EU apologists argue, the subject is far fromover.
• Isabel Hilton is the author of The Search for the Panchen Lamaisabel.hilton@guardian.co.uk
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