Vivid Memories about the Communist Party Culture

"Lei Feng (a role-model established by the Chinese Communist Party in the 1950's) our comrade in arms, our dear brother; Lei Feng, our young people's model; Learn from Lei Feng, ....Follow Mao Zedong (formerly spelt Mao Tse Tung)..." I was only eight years old when I learnt to sing this song. The image of my tears streaming down my face as I sang is still so vivid today after 42 years. Like millions and millions of Chinese people, I, without any defence, accepted the distortion of human nature, the twisted presentation of life, and the confusion of Heaven, Earth, and humans hidden within the dazzling light.

Whenever I got up and offered my seat to an elderly man on a crowded bus, the sincere gratitude in his eyes always gave me comfort. At times like these, the image of Lei Feng appeared in my mind. However, respecting elderly people is part of the universal basic morality of human beings to begin with. When I visited many countries at the age of 40, I saw that there were many kind people in every country offering their seats on the bus to people who needed them. They could also be seen stopping to give people directions in the street and offering help to people who were in trouble. Such commonality of human nature, rooted in an understanding of and respect for life, came from people who had never even known about Lei Feng.

Gradually, I began to think on my own. If stories of Lei Feng's conduct were true, and he did treat people kindly and was willing to give help to others, that was just a manifestation of the simple virtue held deeply in his Chinese heart. It originally had nothing to do with the Communist Party. However, the virtuous nature he inherited from his ancestors suddenly changed identity and became the "embodiment of unselfish Communist Spirit" under the education of the Communist Party after an "imperial epigraph" of "learn from Lei Feng" was produced, thus beginning a nationwide propaganda campaign. Being still a primary student, I naturally associated Lei Feng's image as a "Communist Party Person" with his kindness. But such kindness was gradually cut off from its root. Such way of perpetrating a fraud was one of the chief elements of the Communist culture.

Human beings are kind to begin with. Lei Feng easily moved us. Since we believed in Lei Feng, what the Communist Party culture required us to accept began to exert a subtle influence on the hearts of kids like me who were simple and kind, but also naïve. Lei Feng said, "We should treat our comrades with warmth like that of Spring, treat our jobs with enthusiasm like that of Summer, treat out weaknesses the way Autumn wind sweeps the fallen leaves, and treat our enemies with ruthlessness like that of Winter."

These four deceptive statements confuse good and evil, and gradually penetrated into my blood. The typical influence came from the one about treating "enemies" with ruthlessness and badness. But who were the "enemies" then? How could one make certain who they are? What could be regarded as weaknesses? Who were the comrades? What kind of job was one's duty? The Party decided all these. What were the criteria that the Party used to tell right from wrong then?

Another song that paid tribute to Lei Feng was called "Sing a Country Song to the Party." This song attached the factors of human kindness to the "Party's ray of light" even more directly and more broadly, saying "Singing a country song to the Party. I compare the party to my mother. My mother just gave birth to me. But the Party's ray of light illuminates my heart. In the old society, the whip hit on my body, ......I seized it to hit the enemy."

When we sang these songs, our eyes wet with tears, there was boundless love in our hearts for "the Communist Party that saved good people like Lei Feng out of tribulation" and "strong hatred" toward the enemies classified by the Communist Party such as landowners, capitalists, rich peasants, historic counter-revolutionaries, present counter-revolutionaries, rightists, spies, capitalists, people who played the market, people against the Party, and so forth.

As Chinese people growing up in the Mainland, the Party culture has penetrated our every nerve, all-pervasively, through the words in these songs and through the social foundation where such words were formed. The concept of humanity has been completely replaced by the concept of class. As a result, the Communist Party has placed all Chinese people in a state of losing their humanity and becoming a particle of class struggle. Isn't it easier now to understand how there could be quarrels between husbands and wives and good friends hurting each other during the Cultural Revolution?

Chairman Mao was regarded as the great savior. Since Liu Shaoqi opposed the Chairman, then his death would not be enough to redeem him for all his crimes. Since Zhang Zhixin tried to reverse the verdict for Liu Shaoqi, she was imprisoned and raped by the prison guards. Her throat was sliced open and she was executed. Lei Feng's "treating enemies with ruthlessness" was ultimately portrayed in these cases. However, such "ruthlessness" has become the "spirit of a martyr" admired and praised by all Chinese people in the Communist Party culture.

The Communist Party deliberately changed millions of people across this land of over 9 million square kilometres throughout the past decades, including over 60 million Communist Party members, thousands of former and present Central Committee members, and the former and present top leaders of the Communist Party. The question is: Have you, kind people, ever realised that what you speak out is what you have gotten from the media and the concepts formed through decades of edification in the culture of the Party although it appears to be coming from you? Is that your true self?

Memory of My Childhood

Everyone knew that China was poor in terms of material goods when I was young. A family in Beijing at that time was only permitted to buy 0.25 kilogrammes (0.55 pounds) of sesame jam (pulp of sesame after being squeezed for oil). There was very little extra food at that time. The sesame jam was then my favourite food. I have five brothers and sisters. I was the youngest. Very occasionally we could see a few dishes on the table. My mother often got a small spoonful of sesame jam and stirred it in a bowl while adding water to it gradually. After awhile, the bowl would be full and then a bit of glucose was put in the bowl. It tasted good to dip steamed buns in it.

The year I turned six was the year over 30 million people in China died of famine. One day after a meal, I moved a stool to the kitchen and climbed up to the cupboard when adults were not paying attention to me. As I did not have enough at all from the meal and was still hungry, I opened the bottle that contained sesame jam and scooped out a spoonful. When I was about to put it in my mouth, I heard footsteps suddenly. It was my Mom coming. I climbed off the cupboard in a hurry. But it was too late. I lost my head and stood in front of my mother, feeling too ashamed to show my face instead of being afraid of being beaten. I had never done such a thing behind my mother's back before. Looking at me for a second, my mother scooped a big spoonful of sesame jam from the bottle and put it in my mouth. Mom said lightly, "Sweetheart, just tell Mom when you want to eat. You can have something when there is food. We only have to go hungry when there is no food."

The scene is so vivid in my memory, even forty-four years. It's as if it is happening now. A boy six years of age, a boy who was lucky to have even just a few popsicles in a year, and a boy who kept the 30 cents change from Mother until New Year's eve and secretly put it in Mother's pocket as a gift after wrapping it up well in a piece of paper, I cried. Tears poured from my eyes. I threw myself into my mother's arms with just one thought in my mind, "Mom, I will never do such a thing again!"

Yes. It was my mother's kindness and compassion that encouraged me to choose honesty on my life's journey. However, when my mother told stories and ballads to me many times, she sometimes sang a song praising the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), "You are the lighthouse, shining in the sea before the dawn. You are the steersman, commanding the direction of the navigation. The great CCP, .......Humankind will be liberated by all means!"

Wasn't the boy, so respecting and loving of his mother, accepting the song and the CCP's culture behind the song while he was accepting his mother's kindness? But could my mother cheat me? The song "Following you, humankind will be liberated by all means" from my mother changed after it reached me. "I must liberate the two thirds of white and black people who are suffering when I grow up." Ironically, after truly growing up, I have discovered that so many of the two thirds of people who are suffering are actually Chinese people.

Now I am old enough to know about fate. Previously, I liked martial arts and got to know qigong from martial arts. I found Falun Gong in 1996. Then I truly walked on the path of cultivation. I have been a Falun Gong practitioner for about nine years. Facing the persecution controlled by both Jiang Zemin and the CCP, we step forward to clarify the truth to people. But many times I have heard people say something like this, "A son doesn't mind his mother's being ugly and being poor. Why are you revealing these things? Aren't you causing the Chinese people to lose face?" This is a typical example of the Party culture's changing the connotation of words.

"A son doesn't mind his mother's being ugly and being poor." This sentence originally showed the Chinese people's simple sentiment and filial piety towards relatives. Chinese people are used to referring to the Yellow River as the Mother since the river fostered the ancient civilisation of Chinese people. Chinese people also refer to the central land as the Mother since it is the land where generations of Chinese people have worked and lived. However, it is unknown when Chinese people accepted the concept that "the Party represents the Motherland." As a result, "The Party is the Motherland." Since the Party has the name of the Motherland, then the idea that "The Party is the Mother" followed naturally. When we reveal the evilness of the Party, people point a finger at us saying that we "mind Mother's being ugly." Then we are said to be "opposing the Party" and "opposing China."

Such absurd logic in the eyes of rational people has been regarded as something that goes without saying by people who live in the environment of information blockade, thought-control, and lies. Facing the fact that thousands of Falun Gong practitioners are put in prisons, forced labour camps, and mental hospitals while being tortured and killed, isn't an individual or a group who holds such logic aggravating the persecution and helping the evil to commit crimes?

My estimable fellow countrymen, I hope you can be truly awakened.