On opening day of the Beijing Olympics, Chairman Mao Zedong gazed sternly from a large portrait looming above Tiananmen Square onto a China he would not recognize today.

From the balcony where "The Great Helmsman" proclaimed on Oct. 1, 1949, the founding of the Peoples' Republic of China, there was no sign of the revolutionary zealotry that once fueled the creation of the communist superpower.

Chris Bergeron/Daily News staff

 

An exhausted Chris Bergeron takes in the sunrise on Tai Shan Mountain after a six-hour climb the night before

Returning to China for the first time in 21 years, I didn't recognize it either.

Instead of androgynous masses in baggy green jackets, fashionably dressed couples held hands or pushed babies in strollers through the streets around the square.

Women in jeans and sundresses snapped digital photos of children playing in the Forbidden City. Casually dressed men chatted on cell phones or discussed China's basketball prospects against the U.S. Two spiky-haired students wearing T-shirts with pictures of Nicolas Cage and Eminem bought Cokes for stylish female friends in shorts.

Chris Bergeron/Daily News staff

 

Friendly locals offer Olympic greetings while relaxing in the Summer Palace in Beijing

Flying on July 31 to Beijing, Xiuping Liu, my Manchurian wife, warned me the struggling country I'd known, where Chinese envied Western prosperity, had been replaced by a confident nation reclaiming its traditional place as one of the world's great civilizations.

From 1980 to 1987, I'd taught English at three colleges to the first wave of Chinese students to be educated at that level after the disastrous Cultural Revolution. Raised amid Maoist orthodoxy and anti-American propaganda, they hungered for Western ideas about religion, psychology and the taboo subjects of love and sexuality.

Chris Bergeron/Daily News staff

 

A coolie, which in Chinese means "bitter labor," carries food 5,000 feet up Tai Shan Mountain.

After serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Fiji and freelance teacher in Saudi Arabia, I'd accepted a one-year position at Shanxi Teachers College in rural Linfen, Shanxi Province. An adventurous but immature 30-year-old who loved literature, I improbably came to represent to my students their virgin encounter with the Western culture their leaders had taught them to fear.

This summer, waking from a 13-hour flight like Rip Van Winkle, I wondered if I'd find the China that once stirred my soul or a different country that had outgrown me.

Despite concerns about protests and terrorism, a festive and welcoming atmosphere prevailed in Beijing.

Streets, sidewalks and even parking garages were clean and litter free.

While foreign media reported thousands of homeless and mentally ill people had been forcibly relocated, the large crowds were friendly and receptive to conversations in my ungrammatical, pigeon Chinese.

Chris Bergeron/Daily News staff

 

Shanghai twins sell reproduction Mao bags in Shanghai's "Old Town."

I discovered people were no longer afraid to discuss politics or the Communist Party's efforts to shape opinion and stifle dissent.

Riding with a talkative taxi driver, I asked if he believed in Mao or Buddha, Taoism or even Christianity. "Nothing. None of it," he answered without hesitation. "I just believe in myself."

Across China, Olympic fever was as contagious as Mao's slogans a generation before. Instead of waving the Little Red Book, shoppers bought pins and dolls of the five "Fuwa," or cutesy "good luck" mascots whose combined names means "Beijing welcomes you."

Capitalist lessons learned from the West had transformed the once ubiquitous Cult of Mao into an immediately recognizable brand name I thought of as the Kitsch of Mao.

I bought Mao postcards, Mao playing cards, a Mao stamp album, Mao and Madame Mao T-shirts, a Mao key ring and Mao buttons. On my final visit to Shanghai's "Old Town," spiky-haired twins tried to sell me a pair of roller blades. Instead, I paid $10 for a reproduction Mao-era shoulder bag decorated with his image and the widely-recognized slogan, "Serve the people, heart and soul."

While Chinese police and military geared up for domestic and international threats, I never felt threatened except by the oppressive heat, humidity and gray skies which gave us all sore throats and hacking coughs.

Vast Tiananmen Square, where Mao set loose a million Red Guards in 1966 to launch the Cultural Revolution, was sealed off by armed soldiers to prevent demonstrations by Tibetans, Muslim Uyghurs from the northwest or the Falun Gong cult.

For nearly three weeks, Xiuping and I pursued an ambitious agenda, mixing time with her elderly parents with visits to Xian in central China and Shanghai and Hangzhou on the east cost.

Organized by an energetic student named Wen Lianbin who'd prospered selling coal throughout Asia, students from Shanxi Teachers College in Linfen, Shanxi, where I'd taught from 1980-83, hosted banquets for me in Beijing, Taiyuan and Linfen that drew about 50 old friends.

I was moved close to tears by their warm memories and willingness to forgive my then-cultural blunders. Now in their 40s, most had moved from teaching into business, using their English to work for joint ventures or trade companies.

In a culture that avoids public displays of affection, male and female students embraced me and recalled old times with heartfelt warmth.

After climbing an obscure section of the Great Wall, Xiuping and I rode an overnight train south to Xian to see the fabulous Army of 6,000 Terracotta Warriors buried around 200 B.C. to accompany Emperor Qin Shi Huang "across the river" into the other world.

We visited scenic West Lake in Hangzhou and rode a sampan down through willow-lined canals of Zhouzhuang, the so-called "Venice of China," as our 61-year-old female oarsman sang folk songs.

I still yearned for a special moment beyond the big cities that would transport me, even for the briefest time, to the past magic of exploring China 25 years ago.

While Xiuping stayed with her parents in Beijing, Wes Beasley, an old Peace Corps buddy from South Carolina, and I took a train to Shandong province to climb Mount Tai Shan, the most revered of China's five sacred Taoist peaks.

Rather than climb 6,660 stone steps to the summit on middle-aged legs, we'd planned to ride a cable car to the top. But it wasn't working that day which left us stuck midway to the top.

With little choice, we set off for the summit at 6 p.m., burdened by my overloaded backpack and considerable doubt on my part whether I could make it. Along the way I plodded by ancient temples, rushing waterfalls and century-old pines jutting from craggy peaks.

Strangers offered to carry my bag or buy me soda or fruit. Others, amused by the sight of a pear-shaped sweating foreigner, took photos with me.

A white haired woman who said she was celebrating her 70th birthday passed me by, urging me to "jia yo," or "add oil."

After 10 p.m., Wes and I reached the mist-shrouded summit but began to panic when we couldn't find the guest house where we'd reserved rooms.

Drawn to the light of a small hut, we heard peasants drinking and singing and explained we were lost.

Two young men and a 17-year-old country girl agreed to show us the way. When I stumbled, the slim girl took my arm and calling me "grandfather" carefully led me through the dark to our guesthouse.

Exhausted and grateful, I did something I shouldn't have: I pressed a 100 yuan note, about U.S. $15, into the older man's hand asking him to treat them to a good meal or buy themselves something special.

All three refused. But the young girl saw an album I'd put brought of family photos and asked for a picture of myself in a tuxedo walking my wife's daughter Lulu down the aisle in her wedding dress.

Waking at 5 the next morning, I climbed about 15 minutes to Tai Shan's rocky summit to watch the sun rise.

Moments after the roseate sun burst through a sea of clouds, I saw the young girl sitting 50 yards away with two older people who might have been her parents.

When she waved to me and smiled, I knew I'd found everything I'd come back to China for.

 

 

 

 

http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/news/x627091486/Back-from-Beijing-Daily-News-reporter-shares-his-Olympic-memories

 

Mao Zedong, who died in '76, is on the money -- and countless other items in China

BEIJING -- In the middle of Tiananmen Square, jammed with posing tourists and wandering Olympic sportswriters hoping for a Tibetan protest, a weathered Chinese guy, with a smoldering cigarette nestled between two bottom teeth that looked like a 7-10 split, sneaked up behind me.

He tapped me on the shoulder, glanced around, then yanked up his sleeve.

"You want to buy watch?" he whispered.

"Uh, no, thanks."

"But it's Mao," he said. "Mao! It's Mao watch!"

"No, thanks."

And no matter how many times I declined his offer, he tailed me like a little brother, all the while trying to remain discreet with local police officers and soldiers sprinkled about. He probably didn't own the Mao marketing rights.

He must have been a cornerback in high school, though, because I gave him some of my best slow-white-guy-as-possession-wide-receiver moves and couldn't shake him. But my lack of athleticism (translation: My inability to give the slip to a chain-smoking senior who probably last ate a week ago) was paying off:

Every 30 yards, the price dropped.

He started at 350 yuan (about $60) and kept slashing as I walked away. Two hundred by the clock. One-fifty near the flower bed. One hundred at the subway entrance. Ninety by the Olympic banner. Seventy-five by the flagpole.

By the time he gave up on me -- after also producing a small red book of Mao's poetry for 20 yuan ("I shot an M-16 into the air ...") -- the Persistent Peddler was offering one of those fine Made-in-China timepieces, with the smiling face of the late Chairman Mao Zedong in the center, for 50 yuan.

"Mao watch!" he said. "You bring home Mao watch. Mao is hot!"

He is right. Mao is hot. He is everywhere. Maybe he isn't as conspicuous as he was, say, a decade ago, but you can find him if you look hard enough, and sometimes when you don't even try. His popularity dimmed momentarily when the cruelties of his reign were uncovered after his death in 1976, but he is still a star in the new China, still revered by the masses.

Mao is on almost every piece of legal tender here -- the same smiling, almost smirking, pose. While the United States spreads the wealth among dead presidents and patriots, China's money is monopoly money -- that is, one guy's face monopolizes it.

Let's see, the lunch bill is 77 yuan. That's a Mao (50) and a Mao (20) and a Mao (5) and two more Maos. The Dead Chairman might be the one guy in the world with his face and name on more things than Trump.

A large picture of him overlooks Tiananmen Square. Across the street, the Chinese and tourists still line up at his mausoleum every morning, pay their respects and lay flowers at his tomb.

At the Silk Market -- a six-floor mall with hundreds of arm-twisting merchants and thousands of savvy shoppers, all haggling over the price of everything from clothes to electronics to pearls and silk -- Mao is all around. On the stairs leading from the fourth floor to the fifth, a copper bust sells for 1,400 yuan. The ceramic Mao runs only 40 yuan -- even less for the skilled bargainer.

Many booths are selling Mao watches in dozens of styles. My favorite: Mao's left arm is the hour hand, and he does the royal wave with every tick.

There are Mao refrigerator magnets. Mao posters and coasters. Mao handbags. Mao caps. Leather wallets with Mao's face carved into them. Mao playing cards. Mao lighters. In one shop, a Mao lighter is displayed between Jesus and bin Laden lighters. And you think Condaleeza Rice is caught in the middle sometimes.

Here's a toast to Mao: There's a stainless steel flask with his likeness engraved.

But this just scratches the surface of Mao memorabilia. At the Dirt Market at Panjiayuan -- a huge weekend flea market -- there is all this and more. In ceramic and wood and bronze, Mao is smiling. He is serious. He is waving from a chair. He is standing and waving. He is waving from a car. He is standing at attention. He is sitting at a desk. He is wearing a robe.

Or as Dr. Seuss would say: "Mao is waving from a box. He is waving like a fox."

Check out www.theeastisred.com. Mao cufflinks are $75. The Mao alarm clock -- wake up, the Cultural Revolution has begun! -- is $34.98. You can buy a Mao cigarette case ($4.98), Mao nail clippers ($6.98) and Mao pins ($1.98).

During the first week of the Olympics, on our way to a U.S. women's soccer game in Qinhuangdao, a five-hour bus ride, we stopped at a highway rest stop: Smelly bathrooms with a half-inch of water on the floor. Questionable fast-food. Quickie Mart with Pringles, Oreos, Coke and lots of other junk food.

A tiny gift shop was filled with Mao items. The biggest seller? The Mao tea set. A brightly colored pot and four cups for 250 yuan. When two female clerks saw photographer Andy Mills and I window-shopping, they pounced.

"You like Mao tea set?" one said.

"Actually," I said. "We're looking for Elvis. Do you have any Elvis?"

She was puzzled. "Elvis? Don't know Elvis," she said.

Mills started gyrating his hips: "You know," he said, "Elvis!"

They giggled. They didn't know Elvis, but they learned quickly. When we started to get back on the bus, they were pleading to Mills: "Do Elvis! Do Elvis!"

When we returned from Tiananmen Square, staff writer Manish Mehta proudly displayed the new watch he quietly had purchased -- unbeknownst to the rest of us -- from the pesky peddler.

"Talked him down from 350," Mehta said with a big smile. "Paid only 150."

I didn't have the heart to tell him the last price I had been quoted. Well, not until the next morning when he arrived at breakfast with a scowl.

The watch had stopped working.

Kevin Manahan can be reached

at kmanahan@starledger.com

Sunday, August 24, 2008

 

http://www.nj.com/sports/ledger/index.ssf?/base/sports-3/121955262888280.xml&coll=1

 

Cameras monitor your every step in China's most watched city - Feature Author : DPA

Posted : Wed, 27 Aug 2008 05:35:37 GMT

Shenzhen, China - It's nightfall in China's most watched city. Women nervously draw tight their curtains, fearful that the cameras that record their daily trips to the office and shops will pry into their homes and secretly film their most intimate moments. It is no empty fear. Shenzhen, a frenetic city of 12 million on the border with Hong Kong, is at the heart of an experiment by the national government to monitor its vast population with the latest closed-circuit television, or CCTV, technology - and the boundaries of the experiment are being questioned.

More than 200,000 hi-tech cameras disguised as lighting columns have been set up at main streets, shopping plazas, parks and highways in Shenzhen, beaming live video to monitors in what was expected to become the world's most extensive use of technology for social control.

From the moment you walk over the land border from Hong Kong into the bustling city that just 20 years ago was a sleepy fishing village, high-tech cameras with a 360-degree scope follow you.

Within two years, Shenzhen was expected to have video feeding into a central database from as many as 2 million surveillance cameras - the highest concentration on the planet and four times more than London.

The experiment is part of a nationwide project called Golden Shield, designed to tighten social controls with the use of video technology, much of it imported from major Western companies as security for this month's Beijing Olympic Games.

In Shenzhen, according to deputy police chief Shen Shao Bao, the experiment is already paying golden dividends. Crime rates have fallen by more than 10 per cent and police detection rates have risen by 2.6 per cent since the army of silent sentries began surveillance duty in 2006, he said.

Under the rule of the Communist Party where social control is the norm, the sudden appearance of lamppost-style security cameras across the city was never challenged - until an incident in May stoked concerns that the technology might turn out to be a double-edged sword.

At the Wang Ye Gardens apartment block 3 kilometres from the Hong Kong border, residents noticed that a rooftop surveillance camera on a neighbouring block supposedly monitoring traffic swiveled around from midnight to 5 am every day and trained its high-powered lens through their windows.

A local journalist monitored a government website on which CCTV footage from cameras across the city was made openly available and saw that the camera was scanning the apartment block for lighted windows and filming naked women in their bedrooms and bathrooms. The revelation almost caused a riot.

"People were very, very angry," a spokesman for Wang Ye Gardens management said. "Some of them wanted to go out and smash all the CCTV cameras. They are still very unhappy about the cameras - but they are government property, and we can't move them."

Instead, it served as a wake-up call to the extent to which public surveillance has developed in Shenzhen.

"It is like the Big Brother era in 1984," said one of the estate's residents, Li Xiang. "After this incident, I realized that as soon as you step out of your door in this city, you are under CCTV surveillance."

It is not only the residents of Wang Ye Gardens who are concerned about the pervasive use of CCTV cameras. In a one-party state where activists are jailed for years for opposing the Communist Party, human rights groups said they fear the technology would be used to identify and arrest dissidents.

"Activists aren't only followed by secret police in Shenzhen anymore," said one Hong Kong-based activist who meets regularly with underground labour rights groups in China. "They are concerned that they are followed everywhere by CCTV cameras as well.

"They may not have face-recognition technology on these CCTV cameras yet," the activist said, "but they can easily be upgraded when the technology is available, and no one will know."

But according to Xue Jun Ling, a project manager with Shenzhen Xinhuo Electronic Engineering, which set up a bank of 38 surveillance cameras around the city's Civic Centre, person-recognition technology is already being widely used.

That technology allows the irises, facial features or even the walking mannerisms of subjects to be checked electronically against a database of people the police or government security services want to monitor.

"We already use face-recognition technology in government offices and in the entrance to shopping malls in Shenzhen," Xue said.

"The technology is being upgraded day by day, and the connectivity of different parts of the system to a central monitoring desk is also being constantly improved," he said. "It is a nationwide movement in China. Even small towns are trying to build up their own systems even though they don't have the resources that we have here."

In an extraordinarily frank admission, Xue added: "We did mobile surveillance during the Olympics for the Ministry of State Security. We have surveillance equipment inside a plain vehicle. We park it at Olympics venues, and it sends data and pictures by satellites to the ministry."

A China-based human rights activist who asked not to be named for her own safety said: "We are worried that the government is using the Olympics as an excuse to import this technology from Western companies. Now the games are over, we are worried they will use that technology to identify and round up dissidents."

Xue saw no such dark clouds on the horizon. "We are the national leaders in this type of technology," he said proudly. "We are the city of peace, harmony and security."

For the residents of Wang Ye Gardens, Shenzhen is also the city of unwarranted intrusion. Embarrassed by last month's revelations, the city government blocked public access to the government website showing CCTV footage.

"It isn't good enough," professor He Bin of Beijing's China University of Political Science and Law complained to a Shenzhen newspaper. "Why didn't the government disclose the names of the people responsible and reveal the full details of the case?"

As far as human rights groups are concerned, CCTV monitoring could manifest itself in far more sinister and threatening ways than grainy footage of naked women in the windows of apartment blocks.

Copyright, respective author or news agency

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/228228,cameras-monitor-your-every-step-in-chinas-most-watched-city.html