My Thoughts

Had dinner with a group of tennis buddies (few are from Taiwan and few from China) last night and the conversation veered off to Lin Biao, whom Stalin considered one of the most brilliant generals.  Even the waiter couldn't help but chip in his 2 cents of thoughts.  I sat there silently, when they turned their attentions to me, I replied, "I really don't know much."  Tony the ace (used to live just few yard from me in Beijing, but we didn't know each other and he also attended the same primary school only few years later) said in disbelieve, "you went to one of the best high school and you don't know??  Don't you like history??"  Well, I love history, dearly.  But not yeshi  野史, unofficial history.  I can't see myself spending a week or so reading something that only a theory or remotely resemble the history.  The contemporary Chinese history doesn't intrigue me much for this reason. 

There is drastic difference between China and the West.  In China, especially since 1949, there isn't a single decent biography on any of the leaders, Lin Biao included.  No one actually knew how he died, except his plane crashed before reaching the destination, as the governmental report allowed.  If I really want to read on my fellows, I'd search for books written in English.  Bias aside, I enjoy the diligence.  Quick case in point, Mao's spectacular poem Snow written in 1945 is one of my most favored.  Having studied and memorized since primary school, but little did I know about the background.  Reading Payne's Portrait of a Revolutionary: Mao Tse-tung, I finally learned why it conjures so much power and great momentum.  Mao told Robert Payne in 1946:

“I wrote it in the airplane.  It was the first time I had ever been in an airplane.  I was astonished by the beauty of my country from the air – and there were other things.”

“What other things?”

“So many.  You must remember when the poem was written.  It was when there was so much hope in the air, when we trusted the Generalissimo.”  A moment later he said, “My poems are so stupid – you mustn’t take them seriously”