The words of Marx, the methods of Lenin - Tiananmen Square massacre, China

National Review, August 4, 1989 by George Jochnowitz

MY FAMILY and I first taught at Hebei University in Baoding, China, during the spring semester of 1984. My younger daughter and I returned five years later, in February of 1989. We wanted to return for a number of reasons: to see old friends again, to improve our Chinese, to see whether China was changing as much as people said it was. Between 1984 and 1989, our whole family had pursued our interest in China. We all read lots of books about China and talked to the Chinese students we knew from Baoding and elsewhere who were studying here. It seemed clear: something big was happening in China, and I wanted to see it for myself. Had I known just how big, I wouldn't have gone.

Shanghai and Peking looked brighter and richer than I remembered them, but Baoding was to be the real test. I love Baoding, but I have to admit it is ugly and very dull. Yet there was no question: even in drab old Baoding things were different. To begin with, there were doorbells. When we visited an old friend and rang her bell, it played the first eight bars of Beethoven's "Fur Elise." Apartment interiors used to look like service stations, unpainted concrete with minimal furnishings. Now there were bright colors, carpets, decorative objects, and occasionally musical instruments, Clothing was bright too, and Mao jackets were no longer common. A boy and a girl might walk together; they might even hold hands! Best of all, people were willing and sometimes even eager to talk about politics.

Our own living standards had gone up. We had a television, a refrigerator, rugs, and hot water in the morning as well as in the evening. There was no running water at night and no electricity on Sundays, but we were used to that. We remarked to everyone how much better things were than in 1984. Few people agreed. The "back door" had become the major topic of conversation. It is common wisdom that jobs, college admissions, medical care-just about everything of importance-depends on connections, supplemented by gifts and occasionally outright bribery. "We are very evil people," everyone says. "We love nothing but money. We cultivate friendships so we can get in through the back door. We used to be good, but now we are selfish, just like you." Some people say this in deep shame, others with open delight and pride, most with a mixture of the two sentiments.

"Were you better people when you turned your mothers in to the police for counterrevolutionary thoughts?" I asked maliciously. Everybody loved me for it. They enjoyed hearing me say bad things about their system, though their complaints were not the same as mine. They were tired of being poor, but they felt China was becoming capitalist and therefore selfish and immoral.

Many Chinese believe capitalism is the source of the wealth and power of the West and the secret to achieving a society as rich as America's. But believing capitalism will make everybody rich and happy is not the same as thinking capitalism is good. Goodness under Mao was equated with sacrifice and suffering; therefore, the wish to make China prosperous is selfish and immoral.

One of the new words that had come into use in China since my last stay was guandao, meaning "corrrupt officials." Corruption, alas, is found in all sorts of societies. It is especially prevalent, however, in one-party states, where it is sheltered by the lack of political opposition. It is also likely to flourish where there is no independent press to hunt it down. It is easy for us Americans to grow annoyed with partisanship and scandal-hunting, but in China, where the Party and the press are the same as the government, guandao are built into the system.

The government, to be sure, complains about guandao, asks citizens to report them, and punishes them with great severity. Indeed, it is in the interests of the government for the people to believe that all their problems come from corrupt individuals rather than from a system that by its nature leads to corruption and protects it.

COLLEGE IN CHINA, as in America, lasts for four years, generally from the ages of 18 to 22. There were about forty English majors at Hebei University every year. In addition to teaching linguistics courses, I taught conversation to the freshmen and composition to the seniors . It was hard to mark forty papers a week, but it gave me a chance to learn what my students were thinking. The first theme I asked them to write was on the topic "My Dream." About half the seniors dreamed of being assigned the job of their choice. In China, graduates are assigned jobs by their university, a practice I consider not only inhumane but counterproductive, since people stuck for the rest of their lives in positions they hate are not likely to be efficient workers. That suggested the topic for the second composition: "The Policy of Job Assignment." Some students argued that job assignment was a major source of corruption; others maintained the policy was necessary because if students looked for their own jobs, back-door practices would get even worse.