| What is your most memorable childhood experience? | My mom brought me to a fish farm owned by a friend and other kids were there as well. There was a dirty pond surrounded by steep earth embankment next to a rundown farmhouse. I remember only two scenes whose sequence is tossed up. A kid slightly younger than me, maybe five years old, brought a toy rifle which looked authentic and the dogs barked at him fiercely as he approached the farmhouse. I was deeply impressed by the acuity of the dogs’ senses. Surely they had not seen a real rifle, as rifles were tightly controlled in China. Perhaps they had watched some Hong Kong gangster movies. As we the kids were fishing at the porch, I had no luck with the rod. Someone caught a fish on the hook and kid with the gun got the rod and started swinging the fish around with its mouth on the hook. I still remember the fish’s face, which resembled a middle aged man with moustache flaring out his nostrils. Some adult remarked the fish was in pain and angry. Next, a smaller fish was caught, its face expressionless. The kid laid it on the floor and kept stomping on it until its side skin was worn off. The same adult sighed and called it pitiful. I don’t remember what happened to the fish but all fish in that pond were destined to end up in the kitchen. |
| What immediate family member do you closely identify with and why? | My dad has a successful career and commands the respect of many important people. He studied hard even though schools were shut down. A friend who was with him at the peasant’s commune was impressed as he read a dictionary cover to cover multiple times. Through the years in the countryside he became an autodidact and even newspaper editors enlisted his plume. He is an outspoken critic of the Chinese Communist Party and spoke of it as the greatest mob group in the world. He supported the 1989 student movement on the Tiananmen Square and was disappointed about the crackdown. He is loyal to friends. When a police bureau chief went to jail on a corruption charge, he advocated tirelessly on his behalf, writing to many people in power. He was very impressed when I learned all by myself to sing l’Internationale at the age of twelve, the song sung tearfully by students retreating from the Square on that fateful night. |
| What character traits do you admire in an individual? | I admire intellectual, decisive and strong people. One man having such traits was the president of the astronomy club in my high school. He had an immense reservoir of knowledge on the subject and lectured authoritatively in the classes offered by the club. Besides astronomy, he had wide interests ranging from languages to history. He was a staunch anti-communist and supported the Nationalist Party, a lost cause since its defeat sixty years ago. I understood how difficult it is to develop the critical thinking and historical awareness underpinning such political views amid the constant indoctrination. It requires strength of conviction and bravery to stand firm against the tides of ignorance. For two years the club benefited from his competent stewardship. He was a living rebuttal to the stereotype that stargazers are out of touch with reality, encapsulated by the tale that Greek philosopher Thales fell into a well while observing the sky. Though he did not do well in the college entrance exam, he was accepted by a prestigious school in Australia. He reminds me of the dissident astronomer Fang Lizhi who famously traded barbs with Deng Xiaoping. Fang had a fruitful career as an academic in the US when he went into exile. People like him tilled the mindscape of those around them and fertilizing progress in their paths. Their shoulders are solid rocks on which the foundation of civil society is built. |
| What is the funniest thing ever to happen to you? | In sixth grade I was playing a pencil spirit game with my friends. The game was similar to the coin spirit game and not unlike Charlie Charlie. We were testing whether the spirit could tell time, so someone wrote down all the digits on the paper and the one with a watch stood aside as the referee. I was able to steal a glance at the watch and it said 4:37. After we all grabbed the pencil with our hands it moved automatically to 4. Then I guided it gently to 3. Keeping count of seconds elapsed, I decided it was safe to circle 8. As the time was revealed everyone was astonished. I sat there barely able to restrain my mouth corner. The owner of the pencil was scared and threw it out of the window. The timekeeper said he was expecting the spirit to make a mistake at the change of the minute because little had elapsed in the new minute. With the aid of a tricky teenager the spirit was able to avoid the mistake. Now that I think about the matter I suspect the referee showed me the time intentionally, which makes him the mastermind. In that case two teenagers had conspired to blaspheme against the pencil spirit. Another possibility was that my counting was erroneous and the pencil spirit intervened to call the time. In that case I was tricked by the spirit into believing I played a prank. |
| If time and money were not an issue, where would you travel and why? | When Richard Nixon went to China to reset the great power politics of the world, the first issue on the table was Taiwan. Taiwan’s ambivalent attitudes towards its former dictators are reflected in how they commemorate the past. There are symbols of adulation as well as accusation of tyranny displayed side by side. Only by immersing myself in these contending perspectives can I clarify and critically assess my views on Taiwan, an issue that holds the key to the future of China, a matter of global significance. Taiwan is not currently an independent state because its constitution defines the state in Taiwan as China itself. It is not a breakaway province as the Chinese government claims because it has never been ruled from Beijing. Instead, Taiwan inherited the sovereignty over China from the pre-communist Republic. However, the younger generation of Taiwanese is growing more supportive of independence, motivated by the perception that Taiwan is far more modern and progressive than its populous neighbor. Two hundred years ago Tocqueville visited America when his country was on the threshold of democracy. It is important that Chinese-speaking people step on the shores across the narrow sea to reflect on the timeless topic and join the conversation. |
| When and if you ever have children, what would you like to pass on to them? | I wish I could pass on a page torn out of a children’s encyclopedia depicting ten historic rocket launchers. Especially unforgettable is the Saturn V which sent the Apollo craft to the moon. I kept the page under my pillow for a long time until it crumbled and turned to dust. The encyclopedia was written in Japanese and the pictures in the book featured Japanese people and consumer goods. Over time the encyclopedia lost its binding and many pages, until it met an ignominious fate in a landfill. At that time the page stimulated my imagination and today still stirs the child in me. The problem was that the charm carried by the book page faded away after its physical destruction, and I was spellbound by the TV set and computer screen. I wish somewhere someday the atoms once composing the page could reform themselves in defiance of probabilities, and my child could keep it throughout his or her childhood. May it save the child from TV and video games. |
