“Welcome back, Dr. Xiang,” the man said. “I see you’ve brought in a stowaway.”
“I did. Found her waiting outside across the street.”
“Lyn, this is Li Jeheng, one of China’s UN Ambassadors.”
Lee grasped the ambassador’s extended hand, bowed slightly, and nodded her head to show respect. Trailing behind the ambassador, previously unnoticeable to Lee, was a tall, slender woman wearing a white silk Chinese robe with red, gold, and brown designs, with a pair of brown wool slacks and brown slippers. She was taller than the ambassador, with short graying hair and a wide, friendly smile.
“Ms. Lee, this is my wife, Biyu,” the man said as the woman extended her hand.
“Hello,” Lee said, shaking her hand. Biyu took their coats from them and disappeared into the apartment.
“Please, follow me,” Li said.
Li led Lee, followed by Xiang, out of the foyer and into the apartment.
As she moved through the foyer, a room divider with multiple shelves appeared on her left. On her right was a small room, but the door was closed and she couldn’t see inside. The hallway continued on into the apartment, but Li led them into a living area on the other side of the room divider.
“Please, make yourselves at home,” Li said.
The room was clearly designed to reflect the personality of a Chinese ambassador. The large room divider itself was forged of black iron. It was shaped into a large rectangle broken into twelve smaller rectangles, each with a different decorative piece. There was a bronze bust of Genghis Khan, the ruler of China’s ancient Mongolian Empire from the early 1200s to his death in 1227 AD, a pot of bright pink roses contained within a pot of black porcelain shaped into the design of a Chinese peasant worker, a brass replica of a Chinese temple pagoda, a deep bright blue cloisonné jar with a pink and green floral design, and others.
The floor had thin brown carpeting, but most of it was covered by a thick silk Chinese rug with blue, brown, and green designs. In the center of the room, resting atop the rug, sat a large square coffee table made of zhazhen, a dark wood found in the Jiansu region of China.
Li led them into the room, and Lyn Lee took a seat in an elegant teak chair made of dark wood with a rounded back and soft, beige-colored seat cushions. She sat facing the room divider. Xiang took a seat on a matching sofa on her left.
To her right, opposite Xiang sitting in the sofa, was a fireplace with a blaze radiating a steady warmth. Above the fireplace hung portraits of two of China’s titans with a brief description of the two men underneath. On the left was the ubiquitous former founder and Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, Mao Zedong. To his right was Deng Xiaoping, the ‘paramount leader’ of the People’s Republic of China from 1978 to 1992.
The ambassador took a seat in a chair opposite Lee, facing her.
Biyu suddenly reappeared. “Would you like anything to drink? Water? Tea?”
Lee declined, while Xiang accepted a water.
“Ambassador Li has graciously offered to host us this evening,” Xiang said.
Lee smiled. “Thank you for inviting me, Ambassador.”
“It’s my pleasure Ms. Lee,” Li said. “Xiang is a family friend of mine, so Biyu and myself were interested in meeting you. Biyu and I would like to offer you dinner tonight, if that’s okay with you?”
“Yes, of course,” Lee said, glancing at Xiang. “Thank you.”
“Biyu’s a terrific cook,” Xiang said. “She’ll make a very nice dinner.”
“Xiang tells me you work for Brooklyn Capital as well?” Li asked.
“Yes, ambassador, this is true. I work as a technician alongside our researchers as well as being a developer in our company portal.”
“Excellent. Have you been at Brooklyn long?”
“Let’s see.” Lee had to pause to reflect for a moment. “I’ve been with Brooklyn Capital since I graduated with my master’s degree, which was four years ago now. It’s been a very busy and interesting four years with the company.”
Li smiled warmly. “It sounds as though you’ve enjoyed working for them.”
“Oh yes, absolutely,” Lee smiled. “It’s been a very good experience.”
“It must be interesting work. I understand they’re really at the cutting edge of technology in a number of different fields.”
“That’s very true. The company works very closely with the U.S. military as well as with academia, both here and abroad, to develop new technologies.”
Lee was acutely aware she needed to be very careful as to the information she divulged.
“Interesting,” Li said. “I’m curious as to which technologies you have worked with? What is your background?”
“My educational background is in optical physics,” Lee said. “That’s what I did my master’s thesis on at NYU. So, when I was hired on at Brooklyn, they hired me specifically to help them with a project along those lines.”
“Very interesting,” Li said. “Xiang says that the project was, specifically, involving cloaking technologies. Making things disappear.”
When he said this, Li simultaneously balled his hands, placed them together, and then released them, pantomiming a small explosion, and released a poof sound through his mouth.
“Something like that,” Lee said. “I can’t speak of it too much, though. It’s still classified.”
“Well, if you can’t speak of your work at Brooklyn, maybe you can tell me a little more about yourself? Did you grow up in New York City?”
“Yes, I was born and raised here.”
“In Manhattan?”
“Yes, sir. I attended the Loyola School for high school prior to NYU.”
“—and that’s a Catholic school?”
“That’s correct, Ambassador. It’s a Jesuit school.”
“Excellent,” Li said. “Were you raised in a Catholic family?”
This struck her as an odd question. “To be honest, Ambassador Li, my parents weren’t really religious. I would describe them as agnostic. My mother was a Buddhist, but not a very good one, I don’t think.”
“But you went to a Jesuit school…”
“Yes, I did. It’s a very good school. I don’t think it was the Catholic aspect of it that mattered to my parents. They wanted me to go to a school that could get me into a good college.”
“Oh, yes, I see,” Li said. “That’s certainly understandable.”
Li smiled broadly again. “It’s very expensive to attend a Catholic school. Your parents must’ve worked hard to pay for that, no?”
“They worked very hard,” Lee said.
“Xiang mentioned that your parents are in private business?”
“Yes, sir. My parents opened a bakery many years ago, before I was born.”
“—and they’re still in business?”
“Yes, most definitely. They’ve branched out now. They have multiple stores in Manhattan and Brooklyn.”
“How long has it been now since they opened the first store?”
“They opened their first bakery in the fall of 1978 in Manhattan.”
Her eyes wandered as she responded to Li’s questions. Hanging above Xiang’s head was another large photograph—a color photograph. A grim-faced soldier dressed in drab green pants, tunic, and military cap was marching along a road in formation alongside two other soldiers to his left and right. A red band with yellow Chinese lettering encircled his right arm around his bicep. There were also red collar tabs attached to the collar of the tunic, and a synthetic leather belt fastened at roughly an inch or two above belly-button level around the man’s torso.
“Did you work for your parents?”
The soldier’s march was ramrod straight, his head pointed straight ahead. She focused in on the facial features: short, dark hair, thin nose, and wide eyebrows which made them seem bushy, even at that young age. The photo appeared to be that of a young Li Jeheng.
“Am I boring you, Ms. Lee?” Li asked.
Lee snapped to attentio
n. She blushed at having been perceived as being inattentive.
“No, of course not. I’m sorry, Ambassador. I was just looking at that photo. But, yes, I did work in the bakery, as did my brother. We started working when we were very young.”
Li’s eyebrows danced; his expression was one of surprise.
“What is it that interests you about the photo?” Li asked.
“I was just curious if—”
“—if the soldier is me?”
“Yes. I was curious as to whether the soldier is you.”
“That photo was taken in September of 1967 outside of Shanghai. It was cold that day, I remember, and a light, misty rain was falling as we marched outside the city. The cameraman was—and I didn’t find this out until years later—the cameraman was a freelance journalist from London trying to capture China as it was at that time. I actually remember seeing that man with his camera standing on the opposite side of that dirt road. He was so out of place.”
“So, it was you then?”
“Yes, that was me—a much younger version of myself. I was only fourteen years old at the time. That journalist’s name is Simon Squires. I met him many, many years later when I was in Europe as part of my responsibilities as a diplomat in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He approached me about this very photo and we shared our experiences at the time. Simon blew it up for me and gave it to me, and so now I have it hanging in my home. Needless to say, I was quite surprised that he’d taken the time to research it.”
“That time would’ve been right during the Cultural Revolution. The uniform you were wearing—that was a Red Guard uniform if I’m not mistaken. Were you a Red Guard?”
“Yes, I was. I had only been a Red Guard for a couple of months when that photo was taken. We were marching in formation coming from Changping, a smaller city outside Beijing, where we’d just removed a mid-level manager in a local factory.”
Lee frowned.
“By removed you mean…fired?”
The movement on Li’s face betrayed a slight smirk.
“No, that word doesn’t give quite the correct context. The manager was forcibly removed.”
Lee felt her eyes flutter a bit, reflexively. She’d heard stories about the Cultural Revolution and the Red Guards from her parents.
“Why was he removed?”
Li exhaled heavily and tilted his head back, looking briefly at the ceiling as though trying to think how to best answer her question.
“The manager was removed for a number of reasons, but the major reason, at the time, was because he was displaying capitalist tendencies.”
“Capitalist tendencies? I don’t understand.”
“Well, I would like to answer your question,” Li said. “It’s not such an easy answer. It’s a question I’ve answered on many occasions during my time as Chinese ambassador. To fully answer your question, I must try to explain a bit what the Cultural Revolution was in China.”
“Yes, thank you,” Lee said. “I’m very interested in hearing your perspective.”
“This time in China was a time of extraordinary upheaval. I should say that, arguably, virtually the entire past century in China has been a time of unrest, but the Cultural Revolution, in particular, was difficult. The Cultural Revolution was devised, declared, and implemented by Chairman Mao Zedong beginning in 1966.”
“What was the Cultural Revolution, though? Can you explain?” Lee asked.
“When you talk about the Cultural Revolution, you must start with Mao Zedong and his ideas of government,” Li said. “Mao believed in the basic ideas of Marxist-Leninist Communism. This form of government propagates the idea that all people should be treated as economic equals and the resulting ideal socio-economic structure would be a society where there is no economic stratification of people. In other words, there are no social classes. Thus, there is no lower class, middle class, or upper class. All people are economic equals.
This means that, ideally, everyone will live in a classless society, in a commune, where the economic domination of the upper class over the lower classes is non-existent. Communists believe that the repression of the lower classes by the upper class is evil. Since classes are a natural result of capitalism, it follows then that capitalism is considered a substandard socio-economic structure. You may think of capitalism as the antithesis of communism. Capitalism, of course, is the dominant socio-economic structure in the U.S. and the rest of the Western world. You understand so far?”
“Well, just one question. How does capitalism result in classes?”
“That might be an easier question for you to understand,” Li said, “because all you have to do is study the socio-economic structure of the U.S. In the U.S., the economy is dependent on an open market where firms place their goods for sale. Since there is usually more than one firm producing the same item, there is competition in the marketplace and the price of the good is determined according to the market. In capitalism, private ownership is encouraged, so you have many more privately owned enterprises than state owned. Indeed, the government often outsources production of goods to privately owned firms. This is exactly what Brooklyn Capital does.”
“Yes, of course.”
“Over time, due to many factors, some firms begin to acquire more sales on the open market than their competitors and, assuming that they reinvest these profits back into purchasing better capital for the firm, they become able to produce that good less expensively than their competitors. This is due to economies of scale. Over time, these firms start to win market-share for the product and, since it costs less for them to produce the good, they start to have greater margins and more profit. Thus, a society that may have begun as a large collection of small firms of equal size has now evolved into a mix of small, medium, and large firms that have gradually more employees, more capital, and more revenue. Capitalism thus results in a socio-economic society where everything is hierarchical.
“There’s usually a hierarchy to every industry where you have a handful of larger firms dominating, but with many smaller ones trying to compete and claw their way up. Similarly, each individual industry is structured as a hierarchy where you have lower-level associates, mid-level managers, and senior-level managers. Communist thinking considers the managing of the upper classes over the lower classes a form of repression which is fundamentally evil. You understand?”
“Well, I think I understand to an extent. I suppose it doesn’t matter where you work. There are always disgruntled workers—always people who feel they are being repressed.”
“In a communist society, all firms are owned by the state and there are no classes. Since everyone is considered economically equal, there is no difference in wage between citizens. In fact, in a perfect communist society, there are no wages at all, because there is no need for wages. Each person is considered to have equal right and access to all goods for use in society. The result of this is that all goods are shared or bartered. When one citizen finishes using an item, it is free for the next person to borrow. All goods are public property. You understand?”
“Hmmm…I think so,” Lee said. “It’s a bit difficult to wrap my mind around. It doesn’t seem natural to me at all.”
Li smiled. “To the Chinese, communism is considered the natural human state. It’s the ideal. The utopia. Or at least it was in the years preceding and up to the Cultural Revolution. You have more equality in society as a whole.”
“But where’s the driving force for production? If there’s no competition, there’s no profit motive to drive production and innovation.”
Li nodded as though he was anticipating the question. “Communists believe that the average worker must wholly relinquish their selfish feelings and contribute their best efforts for the benefit of society and, by extension, to the Party since the Party is representative of the people.”
“That doesn’t seem natural to me at all,” Lee said. “That’s a lot to ask.” Far too much to ask.
Li said, “Historically,
it has been proven, for the most part, that the communist socio-economic model tends to produce an unmotivated work force for these same reasons. Even the current regime understands this and that’s why, beginning with Deng Xiaoping in the late 1970s, China has been gradually opening up their economy to the open markets—to capitalism. The Party leadership calls it ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics.’”
“I see,” Lee said. “But how is this related to my earlier question? What does all of this have to do with the removal of that factory manager? What does it have to do with the Cultural Revolution?”
“We removed the factory worker that day because he was displaying capitalist tendencies. Specifically, he was vocally advocating pay increases for the workers as an incentive to increase productivity and also speaking out against Mao and his reform proposals.”
“So you, the Red Guards, forcibly removed him?”
“Yes, that was a big part of our responsibility as Red Guards.”
“I can’t imagine such a thing happening like that here in the U.S.”
“It was a very unique and trying time in China.”
“So, can you give me an idea of what the Cultural Revolution was?” Lee asked, still struggling to understand.
“In short, the Cultural Revolution was a war of ideas and ideologies between different factions within the Party leadership. It was also a battle for the hearts and minds of the people of China.”
“And Mao was the initiator of this movement,” Lee muttered. She turned to glance at the sketch of Mao’s portrait hanging above the fireplace.
“Yes, it was Mao’s doing.”
“What was it like for you at that time?” Lee asked. “What was it like during this revolution? What was it like in Shanghai?”
“Shanghai, even at that time, was a massive city. The city, even in 1967, was ten million people strong. It’s double that number today. I spent a good amount of time in Shanghai during that time period; however, we moved around the country quite a bit. Mao wanted us to move around from city to city. He felt it was important for us to learn about the unique problems prevalent in different cities throughout China. He felt it was better we learn by actually going and participating within the city rather than reading about it in books.
The Thought Cathedral Page 11