[Note: This is one of those “personal” diary-like posts. Please do not read it.]

48 hours. No, not the movie. That’s how long I’ve got before I arrive in Beijing after leaving more than half a year ago.

I described in my most heartfelt post ever how it was at a concert in the Forbidden City Concert Hall that my experience in China reached an emotional level that nearly pushed me to the breaking point.

And I am returning to China because the chorus in which I sang that night is singing again, at the same concert hall, to sing Handel’s Messiah. And once again, I will be going with my friend Ben, the kindest and gentlest creature in the universe. Once again, just like 6 months ago, my former employer and her husband will be there. But this time, instead of hiding Ben from them, I am going to walk over and introduce him.

I’m nervous about this trip. It was a sudden decision to go, as soon as I heard about the concert I felt I had no choice. I left in April in such a state of anguish, not because Beijing made me miserable but because SARS was then at its very peak, and I had to deal with the city’s insanity and leaving my job and handling my relationships and moving and with feelings that were so conflicting I could scarcely make any sense of them.

Singing in that chorus in April may have been was the most emotional experience of my very emotional life. I told my boss that if the concert had been months earlier, if I’d had the opportunity to start practicing with the choir in January instead of April, I would almost certainly have stayed in Beijing. I would be living there right now.

For a long time I had so little sense of purpose in Beijing. I felt unsuited to my job, and I had few if any friends until Ben. I had this blog. If you look at it pre-Beijing, you will see how it evolved, almost overnight, from a passing hobby into the very focal point of my existence.

All of a sudden, in January, I had a sudden sense of inspiration and wrote a post that was totally out of keeping with what I’d written before. It got picked up by a super-blogger and that redefined the course of my stay in China. I would exist to tell the story of the amazing things I experienced there. And that’s what happened.

I had my blog. I had the friendship of the selfless Ben. And then I had the concert, the tape of which is playing this instant in my living room. The very next night, my friend of more than a decade was to fly over from America. And I was to leave, leave my adored friend, my beautiful city of Beijing, which I loved and hated, the city which for all its challenges managed to drive me to levels of inspiration I never before knew at any other time or in any other city.

I’ll never forget that night, walking onto the stage with the other singers, and feeling that some greater power had touched me, a sense of destiny, of a great inflection point, and of danger. The most haunting and mystical of the pieces we sang was The Cantique of Jean Racine by Gabriel Faure.

Just now, as if by magic, as I typed those words, the Cantique began to play on my little stereo, and as always I just fight back the tears as best I can, but it never works; the music always wins. This music is so sublime, so gently stirring that I always have to succumb.

It is a prayer, and it is infused with a religious longing, a gentle but fervent song to God. It begins with one of the simplest yet exquisite melodies ever conceived, sung only by the basses. I stood next to this wonderful young lady, an alto, and during our rehearsal she told me how thrilling it was to stand there and hear me sing the bass line because I was so in touch with the music. But on this night, the night of the concert, it was all too much. I couldn’t deal with it, and the aching beauty of the music caused me to choke; instead of singing, I just started to weep, and I had to fight back the tears, and instead of hearing the beautiful bass line she heard me choking, and afterward she asked me if I was alright. Yes, I’m alright, I told her, I am just going through such an emotional time, and the music brought it all to a head, all I could do was cry.

Beijing. It wasn’t what I thought it was going to be. I had a few shocks and several frustrations, even a few moments when I wondered if I would emerge alive. But I wouldn’t give it up for anything, and nearly every day I feel an acute regret that I left. There, I’ve said it: I wish I had never left Beijing, and if I could go back to that night at the concert hall and change my destiny, I would do it. I would be there today. And now it’s too late.

No one knows what I went through. It was not a matter of culture shock or adapting or spicy food or language barriers. I can’t go into it here; all I can say is that it was as if my heart, my soul, was put into an electric blender.

I need to go to sleep. If you can, get yourself a copy of Faure’s Cantique de Jean Racine and listen to the opening notes, the lush string section and harp, and the entrance as if by magic of the bass voices, so gentle yet so passionate, so full of faith and love, and maybe you will know why even now, six months later, I still cry when I hear it, and why I feel that I left part of me in Beijing. Listen to it, and tell me if you do not, as if by magic, know what God and man is.

It’s a week or two later than I expected, but at least it’s finally happened.

Liu Di, 23, a former psychology major at Beijing Normal University who wrote under the computer name “Stainless Steel Mouse”, was freed from Beijing’s Qincheng prison on Friday, the Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy said on Sunday.

Two other “cyber dissidents”, Wu Yiran, 34, and Li Yibin, 29, also were freed from a jail for political detainees on Friday, it said in a statement.

The release came just over a week ahead of a visit by Premier Wen Jiabao to the United States. China frequently times releases of dissidents to coincide with important trips abroad or visits by world leaders.

This was predictable. The case was simply too controversial, too shocking for China’s trading partners (and everyone else) to just accept with a shrug. She was just a kid, and her arrest sparked a well-deserved international outcry.

So should we break out the Champagne and celebrate? Afraid not. From the same article:

Police also detained at least two people for organising online petitions for Liu’s release. Du Daobin, a civil servant, was detained in October, while Luo Changfu, a 39-year-old laid-off worker, was sentenced to three years in prison.

China has been cracking down on Internet content — from politics to pornography — as the government struggles to gain control over the new and popular medium.

I hope that ‘s clear to everyone. By releasing Liu Di, they’re admitting they didn’t have enough evidence to indict her. But the petitioners, who we now all know were correct in claiming her imprisonment was unjustified, they are now in jail! There’s a twisted irony here.

So as crackdowns on cyber-dissidents increase, this happy ending to one of the more outrageous cases should not be any reason to celebrate or let down our guard. To the contrary; all the recent news indicates the problem is getting much worse, not better.

If you remember, when this story broke a week or so ago, all the honorable officials would say was, “There is no AIDS here!” and refuse to give their names to the reporters.

Oh, what a difference a week can make. Now the government is confirming that there is indeed an AIDS breakkout in the region, brought about by the government’s blood-donation business that started in 1984 and was closed a decade later:

A new outbreak of HIV/AIDS has surfaced in northeastern China’s Jilin province where up to 300 villagers could be infected with AIDS after donating blood at government blood stations, villagers and a rights group said.

“Right now there are three or four villages that have AIDS,” an official at the Soudeng township in Jilin city told AFP by phone.

He refused to estimate how many people in the area had been infected by the virus that causes AIDS, but the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said that up to 300 people could be infected.

“My uncle was infected with AIDS and died yesterday morning. My mother and father also have AIDS,” Huang Rui, a villager in Liujiatun village told AFP.

China is opening up about AIDS and they are finally showing signs of dealing with the catastrophe, or at least of doing more than nothing. Maybe it’s time they do away with their knee-jerk reaction of lies and denials everytime AIDS appears someplace new.

1980: Soldiers prepare party official Wang Shouxin for a public execution by dislocating her jaw so she can’t proclaim her innocence. Charming.

This is a remarkable review of a book I wrote about earlier, Red-Color News Soldier by Li Zhengsheng, full of previously unpublished photographs of the Cultural Revolution and the years following

What makes this review special is that the reporter and his wife actually lived in Beijing throughout the Cultural Revolution and the review is infused with the passion of an eyewitness.

You had to be there – and, 30-odd years ago, we were, a Canadian foreign correspondent and family living in Beijing, bullied by the loudspeakers that poured forth Mao worship, day and night, to hundreds of millions of Chinese. It was laughable, and it almost drove us crazy.

Those mad times came flooding back the other day when leafing through Red-Color News Soldier, an extraordinary book of images by Li Zhengsheng (Phaidon Press).
[….]
The photos can be startling. Monks stand in embarrassment, forced to hold up a banner reading: “To hell with the Buddhist scriptures. They are full of dog farts.” Softcover books litter the floor of a ransacked library; Li notes all the hardcover books had been taken by rival groups for use as projectiles.

One which brings back memories shows a parade in which wax mangoes are carried reverently in glass cases behind a statue of Mao. This commemorated the great man’s gift of real mangoes to worker-peasant propaganda teams. I saw one of the originals when I visited a factory in Beijing; it was preserved in formaldehyde and exhibited like a sliver of the true cross.

This is one book I want to own. Maybe I can pick up a copy when I’m in Beijing next week…?

Amazing. A big fat article in the NY Times about the Guangzhou sex kitten. Everything you ever wanted to know about her is here.

For the past month, as China’s propaganda machine has promoted the nation’s new space hero or the latest pronouncements from Communist Party leaders, the Chinese public has seemed more interested in a 25-year-old sex columnist whose beat is her own bedroom.

“I think my private life is very interesting,” said the columnist, Mu Zimei, arching an eyebrow and tapping a Marlboro Light into an ashtray. She added: “I do not oppose love, but I oppose loyalty. If love has to be based on loyalty, I will not choose love.”

Mu Zimei is both reviled and admired, but she is not ignored. The country’s most popular Internet site, Sina.com, credits her with attracting 10 million daily visitors. Another site, Sohu.com, says Mu Zimei is the name most often typed into its Internet search engine, surpassing one occasional runner-up, Mao Zedong.

It’s great that the Times is giving this so much space, taking a look not only at who she is but at how this episode has ignited a major nationwide debate in China on women and sex. A debate that’s making the government squirm.

As China becomes ever more capitalistic and obsessed with “hip Western culture,” how can the CCP keep today’s young people interested in stodgy old Mao? Easy! Turn him into a rapper:

In a desperate appeal to China’s fashionable youth, the Chinese Communist Party has approved the repackaging of Mao Tse-tung as a rap artist.

Mao’s favourite exhortation – the Two Musts – is to be set to music and released alongside pop versions of all the Great Helmsman’s old slogans, such as The East is Red and Serve the People.

The rap album to honour the 110th anniversary of Mao’s birth next month follows another record, A Red Sun, released to mark his centenary.

The Beijing Times said yesterday: “Ten years ago, the album A Red Sun brought a crimson tide of songs rushing through our music industry. This year, the China Record Company has finished the production of the powerfully red Mao Tse-tung and Us.”

With Mao’s 100th birthday fast approaching, the CCP is desperate to do whatever it can to rekindle enthusiasm for the Great Helmsman, now regarded by most young people, thank God, as utterly irrelevant.

So how did European Union and Chinese delegates meeting on human rights in China wrap up their meeting this week? By visiting an AIDS treatment center in Beijing. And in light of China’s history of not acknowledging its AIDS catastrophe, this is a breakthrough.

Stories like this are suddenly becoming the norm. Bill Clinton’s recent participation in an AIDS conference in Beijing received massive media coverage, despite the CCP chieftains distancing themselves from the event. And China declared November “AIDS Awareness Month” and has plans to further spread the message on Monday, World AIDS Day.

You have to remember that it wasn’t so long ago that the CCP was denying that AIDS existed in China at all. Even after the AIDS-tainted-blood made it into the news.

So what was it that made China finally take on the AIDS issue, speaking in public about it, putting ads about it on TV, making publicized visits to AIDS treatment centers?

I’d guess that it wasn’t one thing, but a confluence of factors, including a huge crescendo over the past 8 weeks or so of international concern over China’s apparent unwillingness or inability to embrace the situation.

It was only a few weeks ago that a whole new angle was added to the media coverage of China’s AIDS crisis — the concern that AIDS was more than a social/medical nightmare for China, but a financial nghtmare with direct and painful ramifications for the economy. If anythings going to perk up the CCP’s ears, it’s that.

It’s hard to say exactly where/when the turning point began (and it may even be too early to call it a turning point at all). I’m going to take an optimistic viewpoint for once, and venture that it’s real, similar in many ways to their sudden enlightenment over SARS: It took all hell breaking loose and a shrill international outcry to get the CCP off their asses in both instances. It was only in the face of chaos and catastrophe that they budged.

But once they crossed that threshold, once they acknowledged they had a crisis that could no longer be brushed aside or covered up, they pulled out the stops and dealt with it. I really think we are seeing that now. It’s only just starting, and there is no excuse for their taking so many years to arrive at this realization. And thanks to their keeping their heads in the sand, its going to be much more difficult and expensive to contain the epidemic.

Still, if they are serious now, if they are actually making a true commitment and not just gesturing, maybe, just maybe they can deal with AIDS while there is still time. If they aren’t serious, then China will almost certainly be the next Africa, and the misery and death will be compounded exponentially.

Related post: The indescribable tragedy of AIDS in China

Adam has an eyewitness account of the latest AIDS awareness ads on CCTV. From what I’ve been reading, there will be a lot more of these. It’s years late, but certainly a step in the right direction.

In an editorial today, the WaPo describes how much the “new” China is trying as hard as it can do divorce itself from the “old” China’s image as a prickly, paranoid, irrational and ideologically crazed nation.

And, the editorial says, it’s been doing a good job. Except when it comes to Taiwan, an issue that brings to life the old blustery, bellicose China we all know and love:

Beijing fears that constitutional changes could make Taiwan’s de facto separation from the mainland explicit, or that a referendum could be called on independence. Its apparent strategy is to frighten Mr. Chen into backing down — or more likely, push the United States into using its leverage on the Taiwanese president.

Such tactics demonstrate that China’s new leaders are not as pragmatic or enlightened as they seem. What Mr. Wen and Mr. Hu fail to perceive is that Mr. Chen is a typical democratic politician engaged in a tough reelection campaign. Though his party is pro-independence, he is unlikely to aggressively press that agenda even if he wins, if only because Taiwan’s economy is now deeply dependent on trade with the mainland and most Taiwanese people favor preserving the status quo.

Pointedly, the editorial cautions Bush not to give in to Wen’s demands that the US speak out against the referendum:

Mr. Bush should do no such thing. Instead, he should explain to Mr. Wen that his government’s approach to Taiwan needs some modernizing. Now that Taiwan is a democracy, threats of invasion will only strengthen its independence movement — just as the recent rhetoric only spurred the parliament into acting on the referendum law. The only way Beijing could achieve its goal of unification would be by winning over the Taiwanese public. That would take time and greater economic integration. It would also require China’s new leaders to deliver on Mr. Wen’s fluent rhetoric about democracy and rule of law.

Interesting. I read in a blog comment yesterday (don’t remember where) that Americans don’t realize that most Taiwanese want to reunify with the Mainland, but only after the Mainland has fixed up its act in regard to free elections, free trade, human rights, etc.

Would it be rude of me to suggest that this may prove a very, very long wait?

This won’t be of interest to everyone, and maybe not to anyone, and I guess I want to put it down more to save the memory than anything else. I take that back. It is a beautiful letter that will add depth and quality to the life of anyone who reads it.

My dearest friend from Beijing, Ben, wrote me the most beautiful email two days ago, and I asked him if I could post it to my site. It makes me so excited to see his enthusiasm for life, his need to always strive for something better, his youthful ambition that doesn’t know any boundaries.

Maybe I’m so touched because I remember how I was once the same way, and I wish I had known at that age exactly what I wanted my life to be, the way Ben does. He asked me to edit the grammar, but I think the way he writes it, just as it is, is part of what makes it so endearing. (He mentions some names and some institutions that I’ve either changed or deleted to avoid any problems.) He also talks about how he could have joined my favorite political party, the CCP, and why he didn’t. I never knew these things before.

As I said, it’s more for myself, but I’m hoping maybe someone somewhere will see the beauty of Ben’s innocence and total goodness which even now makes me long for China’s success. There must be so many people like Ben in China, and they deserve to have great lives. I’ll leave it at that. Here’s what he wrote:

———————————————-
Richard, one of my old classmates (we shared same dormitory in university) who worked at Ji Nang(Shangdong province) came to Beijing today. We had a lunch together, then went to visit our previous tutor, Ms Li, a warm-hearted and kind person.

Ms Li gave me a lot of help during my college time, especially when I just came into Beijing. She learned my family financial status and made all her efforts to help me, she recommendated me to that charity agency to get aid of RMB1500 per year. It is very helpful at that time. Ms Li was very happy to met us, because both her husband and her had retired, and they always want to meet their students.

She mentioned one of her students, Mr. W whom she took pride in and often talked about during my college times. He was former president of [names of companies], he was promoted by former premier, Zhu Rongyi. Richard, you know how pride I felt because this excellent alumni, he also had promising political future at that time.

But unfortunately, he met “serious political issue” in 2001 and forced to resigned, at the same time, was expelled from CCP’s qualification. The problem was happened when he acted as president at [company name], and raised after he was president of [company name]. According relevant report, his problem laid in his corruptive life, someone muckraked he owned a luxury house in New York. Relatively, our other alummi who acted as vice president of [name of government agency] and had even been promoted by Mr. W., also had forced to resign.

This matter already passed for 2 years, and I was aware of the media report before. But Ms Li told us with a little pity, she said Mr. W was not so starring during his college life, but he studied and worked very hard. Mr. W was also kind and friendly, not so bureaucratic. Even when he acted as president of [company], he always answered every detail questions from my tutor with big patience. “How silly and venturous he was, why he would bought so luxury house in obvious New York”, Ms Li said with plaint.

Later, our topic went further and talked about dark side of politics in China. Richard, as an ambitious student majored in public administration, you know my dream had been to be president and great stateman. But I made drastic change when I was a junior college student, I found my character and thoughts could not fit in with China’s political condition, and I did not want to change myself from heart to fit it just in order to get my political objective. I love freedom and do not want to be controlled by dark human relationships. Actually, I had opportunity to become a CCP member when I was in my high school, but I did not take CCP’s lesson and gave up actively, even it also meaned I would lose lot’s benefits. The reason was simple, I felt boring about it.

As Roosevelt’s saying said, “To be president, otherwise advertising man”. I gave up my political future at so early age and decided to devote advertising and communications world. Maybe at this industry, I could find the thing which will make me feel excited for ever, otherwise, I will go on finding………..-:)