MRS XIE: They're both good-looking!
XINRAN: Friends who've seen your daughter all say she's very pretty.
MRS XIE: No, no, not at all. They're both ugly. Poor families don't have good-looking children!
Poor families don't have good-looking children! Her words pained me. In China there's a saying: 'Laugh at the poor, but don't laugh at prostitutes', meaning that the poor are the lowest level of society, lower even than prostitutes, and are only worthy of ridicule. It's an old saying, which had been officially wiped out by half a century of revolution, but has now been dug up again from the rubbish heap of history. It describes the gulf which separates rich and poor as a result of the flying leaps which China's development has taken.
While I was worrying about this 'putting old concepts to new use', I received an email that had been circulating on Chinese blogs from a friend in Beijing. She asked me to pass it on to the overseas Chinese who were with me, and tell them it described the kind of love which was becoming fashionable among Chinese city dwellers.
Ten true things that everyone should keep in mind.
1. On meeting a beggar: When you meet someone begging for money, give him or her a bit of food; when you meet someone begging for food, give them a bit of money.
2. If you meet an elderly or disabled person or a pregnant woman on a bus, don't raise your voice or make a song and dance about giving up your seat to them. When you stand up, use your body to keep the space and give it to the person who needs it. Then pretend you're getting off and move away. It's a fact that too often people don't move far away. When someone thanks you, give them a smile.
3. In snow and rain, and on cold or snowy evenings, if you meet someone selling vegetables, fruit or newspapers who has just a bit left and still can't go home, buy everything if you can, and if you can't, buy something. Because eating something is still eating and reading something is still reading, and buying it means they can go home sooner.
4. If you meet an elderly man or woman or child lost on the streets, take them home if you can; if you can't, put them onto a bus or take them to the local police station. If you have a phone, then make a call for the old person or child before you go. After all, you won't miss the cost of a couple of calls.
5. If someone who's lost asks you for an address and you happen to know where it is, then go ahead and tell them. Don't back off apologetically; no one's trying to get at you.
6. If you find a purse, have a look for the owner. If you really need the money, then leave the small change behind. Phone the owner and say you found it in a toilet. Return the credit cards, ID card and driving licence to the owner. Most people won't be bothered about losing the money. Jot down the person's address in your notebook, and when you've made your money, go and say sorry and pay the money back.
7. If you come across students doing jobs to pay their school fees – especially if they're middle school students and if they're young girls – buy a bit of whatever they're selling. If she's not from a poor family, and needed courage to go out and find work, then give her some encouragement.
8. If you see someone sitting on the pavement at night with their goods laid out on a bit of carpet, buy as much as you can and don't haggle. These things aren't expensive, and no one whose home situation is less than terrible would ever go out in the cold to sell stuff like that.
9. If you're pretty well off, don't keep a mistress. Support a few school students from poor mountain areas on the quiet. Don't let them know who you are, otherwise it will be awkward and terribly embarrassing when you meet. But you won't be on tenterhooks all the time like when you're keeping a mistress – in fact you'll feel quite easy in yourself. If you really want to keep a mistress, then keep one, but at least do something good as well. After all, people are complicated.
10. If you have plenty of time, and you happen to feel that what I have said is right, then post an answer to my message. It's more gratifying than answering completely rubbish messages. Also if you have enough time, post this text on to a few other sites. The more good people there are, the better we will feel.
While we were in Beijing on the final stage of our journey, we stayed in the Red Building, next to the former home of Beijing University. The Red Wall Hotel, currently 'trying for three-star grading', is next to the Beijing University Museum, and next to that stands a newly erected monument to the 4 May Patriotic Movement.
The 4 May Movement marks the moment at which China embarked on a century of modern history. In 1914, Japan used the pretext of the outbreak of the First World War to declare war on Germany, and occupy Qingdao and the entire length of the Jiao-Ji Railway. Once in control of Shandong, Japan removed from Germany all the privileges which that country had seized in the province. At the close of the war in 1918, Germany was defeated. In January 1919, the victorious nations opened a peace conference in Paris. China, represented by a joint delegation of the Beijing government and the Guangzhou military government, attended on the side of the victors, and put forward a number of proposals. These included abolition of all of the Great Powers' concessions in China, along with abolition of the '21 Demands' unequal treaty concluded between President Yuan Shikai and the Japanese imperialists, and restitution of all powers removed from Germany in Shandong by Japan before the war. But the Great Powers manipulated the Paris Peace Conference in such a way that not only were the Chinese demands rejected, but the peace treaty with Germany proclaimed that the Shandong concessions were to be turned over in their entirety to Japan. The Beijing government was prepared to sign the treaty but the Chinese people were fiercely opposed.
On the afternoon of 4 May 1919, over three thousand students from Beijing University and twelve other universities and training colleges broke through police and army cordons and gathered in Tiananmen Square, to hear speakers. Then they organised demonstrations and shouted slogans such as: 'Fight for sovereignty abroad, get rid of national traitors at home', 'Abolish the 21 Demands' and 'Refuse to sign the peace treaty'. They also demanded that the leaders of the pro-Japanese faction – Cao Rulin, Zhang Zongxiang and Lu Zongyu – be punished. The Beijing students went on strike and galvanised the entire country into resistance.
The impact of the patriotic activities of the Beijing students spread rapidly to cities such as Tianjin, Shanghai, Changsha and Guangzhou, and there was support, too, from Chinese students studying abroad and overseas Chinese. Even more students embarked on propaganda activities on 4 June and within two days nearly a thousand students had been arrested. This further aroused popular anger. From 5 June, between sixty and seventy thousand Shanghai workers held a political strike, while workers from cities such as Nanjing, Tianjin, Hangzhou, Jinan, Wuhan, Jiujiang and Wuhu held a succession of strikes and demonstrations. The Beijing government was so shaken by this activity that on 6 June it was forced to release all those students who had been arrested. On 10 June, a proclamation 'approved' Cao, Zhang and Lu's 'resignations'. On 28 June the Chinese delegation refused to sign the peace treaty with Germany. The victorious 4 May Patriotic Movement now came to a temporary halt.
The 4 May Movement is seen as marking the end of the old Chinese democratic revolution and the beginning of the new. After the People's Republic of China was established, the Government Administration Council of the Central People's Government proclaimed in December 1949 that henceforth 4 May would be National Youth Day.
All the elderly people we had interviewed were witnesses to the history of China after the 4 May Movement. For this reason, I felt that before completing
However, we were interrupted by two men dressed in light grey uniforms and wearing 'security guard' armbands.
SECURITY MEN: You're not allowed to film here!
XINRAN: Why?
SECURITY MAN A: Have you got a permit?
